Lord Kinnock

The right honourable Neil Gordon Kinnock, having been created Baron Kinnock, of Bedwellty in the County of Gwent, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Baroness Amos and the Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, and made the solemn Affirmation.

European Council: Luxembourg Presidency

Lord Dykes: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What discussions they have had with the government of Luxembourg about financial and economic issues arising during that government's presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Chancellor of the Exchequer regularly meets Jean-Claude Juncker at ECOFIN meetings in Luxembourg and Brussels. Officials also have bilateral discussions with Luxembourg, as with all member states, and this is the case with all presidencies.
	{**5**}

Lord Dykes: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that brief reply. There are two thorny questions among many facing the Luxembourg presidency: first, the elaboration of the policy reforms under the Wim Kok phase 2 Lisbon agenda; and secondly, getting effective financial perspective for 2007–13 on funding and spending and agreement in the enlarged Community. How will Her Majesty's Government deal with these priorities reporting to ECOFIN on 8 March and subsequently to the European Council on 22 and 23 March? What will the priorities be?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I knew that I needed my noble friend Lord Kinnock to sit beside me for this Answer, but I will do my best in his absence. First, the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, asked me about the Lisbon agenda for the competitive and dynamic economy. As he knows, Wim Kok produced his mid-term review in November last year, and I understand that the outcome of the review will be discussed at the spring ECOFIN council. We hope for a relaunch of the 10-year programme. The noble Lord's second question was about finances. He will be aware that the UK Government wish to retain the budget at 1 per cent of GDP, which is a 6.5 per cent increase and is certainly enough for the incorporation of the 10 accession states.

Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, would it be fair to say that the British Government are planning on future expenditures under the ceiling of 1.00 per cent of European incomes, whereas many of the Commission documents are predicated on perhaps a 1.14 per cent ceiling? The longer this goes on, the more difficult it will be to draw up sensible plans on overseas development and other matters. The sooner this future perspective is agreed, the better.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I entirely agree, but my noble friend will know that five other member states have written in support of our view that the budget should be restricted to 1 per cent. I know that the Luxembourg presidency is looking for a resolution of this issue by June. Failing that, we will pursue the matter vigorously during our subsequent presidency.

Baroness Noakes: My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the European Court of Justice will today start hearing one of the many large tax cases that will, if decided against the Government, blow a hole in the UK's budgetary arithmetic. Will the Government include in their discussions with the Luxembourg presidency the need to remove the European Court of Justice from the tax affairs of the UK, or have the Government now given up and accepted the primacy of the ECJ?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: No, my Lords, we will not move to remove the European Court of Justice from its statutory responsibilities; and nor would the Opposition expect us to. Of course, we take its views seriously, but some of the objections that have been raised on tax matters before the European Court of Justice are extremely self-interested.

Creationism: Teaching in Schools

Lord Taverne: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether the national curriculum will exclude the teaching of creationism in schools.

Lord Filkin: My Lords, creationism is not part of the national curriculum for science. In the programme of study for 14 to 16 year-olds, pupils learn about evolution and how variation and selection may lead to evolution and extinction. They also consider different theories on the origin of the universe. In all aspects of the national curriculum, we encourage pupils to consider different ideas and beliefs and how scientific controversies can arise from different ways of interpreting evidence.

Lord Taverne: My Lords, as the Government are in favour of allowing choice between sense and nonsense, will they also allow children to be taught that the earth is flat, and that the sun goes round the earth? Since there is a crisis in maths teaching in schools, and some university chemistry departments are closing down, will the Government offer as an alternative the teaching of astrology and alchemy? It is extraordinary that a Government and a Prime Minister who say that they are in favour of science have allowed the introduction into our schools of the worst features of American fundamentalist, anti-science, pseudo-science nonsense. Is this not disgraceful?

Lord Filkin: My Lords, I apologise to the House for not having spoken clearly enough, because the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, could not have heard my response, in which it was explicitly clear that creationism is not part of the national curriculum. We are clear and we are proud that pupils should be taught to look at argumentation and evidence and come to conclusions as a product of rational debate based on evidence. That is the core of scientific inquiry, and it is the core of a proper process of education. As to his two or three other questions, we are making substantial progress on increasing the number of science teachers in schools, and we are clear that scientific study must be part of the core offering of all pupils as part of their secondary education.

The Lord Bishop of Norwich: My Lords, is it not the case that a better understanding of the place of myth and story in religion needs promotion in the curriculum? A critical understanding of the first two chapters of Genesis, with their two stories of the creation of the world, might undermine the literalism that so worries my noble friend Lord Taverne.

Lord Filkin: My Lords, I strongly agree with the right reverend Prelate for two reasons: first, it always pays to agree with the Bishops' Bench; and, secondly, it seems absolutely to capture the position of most people in Britain, whether they have faith or not. Not having a literal belief in Genesis does not deny the existence of God.

Baroness Rendell of Babergh: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that creationism is being taught in our schools? Is he further aware that creationists insist on Biblical texts being taken literally? A child I know who, having seen the film "The Day After Tomorrow" asked if it could happen here, was told by his teacher that God had promised that there would never be another flood. If that seems a small matter, does my noble friend agree that it would not be a small matter if the text in question was that from Leviticus that insists on homosexuality as a sin punishable by death?

Lord Filkin: My Lords, this is one of those Questions that Ministers fear, because they can lead in almost any direction imaginable. We are not aware that creationism is being taught in schools. One of the clearest allegations—I think that it was in 2002—was that one of the Vardy CTCs was so doing. When that was investigated by the former chief inspector of education, he could find no evidence to support it. The subsequent chief inspector—the issue spanned both of them—was happy to accept the undertaking given that it was not happening. If my noble friend has evidence of what she thinks is inappropriate behaviour, she should let me or Ofsted have it.

Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, is the Minister aware that there are a large of number of schools attached to the Church of England, and, indeed, that there are Muslim schools? Is he satisfied that they give a balanced view and follow the curriculum of which he spoke?

Lord Filkin: My Lords, there are indeed a large number of Church of England schools and Muslim schools in the maintained sector; there are of course many fewer such Muslim schools. The evidence from Ofsted is that they follow the curriculum. The stance of the previous Secretary of State for Education and Skills was very clearly that religious education or education sponsored by religious faiths was an important part of our educational system, but is subject to the national curriculum and the inspection of Ofsted, as are all maintained schools.

Lord Peston: My Lords, I understood my noble friend's Answer to be that, in science courses, there is no possibility that creationism is introduced or taken seriously. I hope that he will confirm that. I then got a bit lost on religious studies. Unless my memory serves me ill, religious studies is part of the national curriculum. Within religious studies, do the teachers say that creationism is a valid view of what happened in the history of the universe, and are the children subsequently examined on that basis? Is that possible within religious studies, rather than the notion that creationism is put forward, if not as part of the Bible, as part of the mythology of a rather primitive tribe that inhabited the Middle East a great many years ago?

Lord Filkin: My Lords, the noble Lord was correct in what he had inferred that I said—that creationism is not part of the national curriculum for science. Although it may surprise the House that there is not a formal national curriculum for religious education, a national non-statutory framework was introduced last October and has been well received by a wide variety of religions, and by the British Humanist Association. It is possible for a literal interpretation of the Bible to be taught in religious lessons, but we would expect schools also to put across alternative views, just as they are expected to put across the full range of faith beliefs that exist in our society. I doubt that it would be practical or possible to put creationism across in religious education in our schools in the crude way that he feared.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, will the Minister consider restrictions on the sort of groups permitted to set up academies if they should be found to promote creeds that are simply not compatible with the national curriculum?

Lord Filkin: My Lords, if schools were not compatible with the national curriculum, or had beliefs or values not consistent with it, they would not be accepted as academies. If they subsequently developed such practices, there are ample powers to prohibit them continuing. However, we know of no such problems.

Public Borrowing: Golden Rule

Lord Barnett: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What contingency plans they have made for a possible breach of the Chancellor's golden rule on public borrowing.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the 2004 Pre-Budget Report showed that, on the basis of cautious assumptions, the Government are meeting the golden rule over the current economic cycle, with a margin of £8 billion including the AME margin. The Government will meet the golden rule in the current cycle and into the next, with a projected average surplus on the current budget over the period 2005–06 to 2009–10 of 0.25 per cent of GDP.

Lord Barnett: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that not unexpected reply. However, I am sure that he is aware that many distinguished economists—"distinguished" may not necessarily be the right word—have forecast that there will be a breach in the golden rule. In the past, they have not been entirely correct in their forecasts; in fact, they have always been wrong. However, on this occasion, they may just be right. Given that GDP in money terms next year is likely to be around £1,300,000 million, will my noble friend accept that, even if there is a modest breach, it would not be essential or appropriate to increase taxation or reduce public expenditure?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord is referring to the most recent forecasts of the Institute of Fiscal Studies and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. If he is, I am happy to include them among distinguished economists. He is right to say that the record of independent forecasters has not been all that good and certainly has not been better than the Treasury's record. In recent years, the Treasury's forecast differences for net borrowing have tended to be smaller than those of the OECD, the IMF and the European Commission. In so far as those figures for net borrowing are the difference between two very large numbers, there is clearly scope for adjustment at the margin. Certainly I agree that it would not be right to jump into drastic action as the result of very minor changes. That was shown to be the case in 2003.

Baroness Noakes: My Lords, we agree that the Chancellor will not breach the golden rule, because we believe that he will raise taxes to ensure that he stays within it. The only question is: what taxes and when? Will the Minister say what and when?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the question arises from a premise that is itself false.

Lord Dykes: My Lords, does the Minister agree that—despite the much heavier investment by the Chancellor in the public sector in recent times—it is unfortunate that we still have the lowest investment ratio of the leading core countries in the European Union, both in the private and public sectors? What steps do the Government intend to take to rectify those problems?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, investment by itself is not an unmitigated good or bad. There are good investments and bad investments. We think that the investment programme that we have adopted—and that has been necessary to remedy the underinvestment by the government whom the noble Lord at the time supported—is necessary and well calculated to achieve its results.

Lord Newby: My Lords, does the Minister accept that there are a significant number of controversies about the assumptions that underlie the budget balance on which the golden rule exists? An example in the past fortnight is the Government's estimates of corporation tax take in the years ahead; another is Martin Weale's comments today on the very basis on which the golden rule is calculated. Does the Minister agree that the best way to deal with those controversies is to give the NAO the power to have an independent audit of the assumptions that underlie the Treasury's calculations? That would put to rest some of our debates.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the last time that the noble Lord asked me that question—it was fairly recently—I replied that the basis of calculation of the golden rule had been confirmed by the Treasury Committee, which is not particularly known for slavish adherence to Treasury terminology. I hold to that answer.

Lord Peston: My Lords, bearing in mind how very difficult it is to forecast GDP, and therefore how very difficult it is to forecast tax revenues—outturns when it comes to public expenditure are again rather tricky, even when you are trying to control them—it must be at least theoretically possible that the golden rule could be broken. However, I am not one of the distinguished economists and I do not expect it to be broken, which shows my lack of distinction. Therefore, there must at least be something resembling a contingency plan in the Treasury because, in my experience, the Treasury is on the whole very sensible and would consider all sorts of scenarios, including what to do if things do not go quite the right way. Should the added answer to the Question be that at least something called a contingency plan exists?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Peston does not need to fish for compliments. I would have called him a distinguished economist whether or not he gave me the opportunity. Of course he is right to say that the Treasury has contingency plans for a wide range of possibilities and probabilities.

Asian Tsunami: Assistance to Relatives

Lord Clinton-Davis: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	How they propose to treat relatives of the deceased victims of earthquakes and tsunamis in south-east Asia.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the Foreign Office has made available a package of assistance to bereaved families, including return flights to the affected region, accommodation and, where appropriate, meeting the costs of repatriating victims. Police family liaison officers have been appointed to the families of all British nationals killed or missing and highly likely to be involved after the tsunami—over 300 officers in total. Police and FCO staff are working with the relevant local authorities to find and identify those still missing.

Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, although I acknowledge that the Minister's reply is very acceptable, does she recognise that the relatives of the deceased are in a particularly vulnerable position? The noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, said that an announcement on the matter was likely to be made in a few days. When will the Government say that relatives should not have to wait for seven years? The sooner that the Government are prepared to say that, the better it will be.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I could not agree more. That is why, realising how much family concern was generated over the issue, the Government made the announcement on death certificates on 25 January. In response to the exceptional circumstances, the Government have agreed that where a body has not yet been recovered or identified, we shall register the death overseas and issue a certified copy of the register entry. That will be done at the request of the family and based on police advice, following their inquiries. It will be free of charge. Family liaison officers have been or are getting in touch with all the families of missing people to explain that process to them.

Lord Renton: My Lords, will the noble Baroness bear in mind that the Foreign Office has a primary duty towards the British people who have suffered through the tsunami and that more British people will have gone to Sri Lanka and been caught there than in all the other places put together?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the major problem for our embassy officials has arisen in Thailand, where there were so many British holidaymakers. The first team of staff from the British embassy in Bangkok left for the worst affected area, Phuket, on the day of the disaster, 26 December. They had to travel by car because the airport was not functioning. Between 26 December and 24 January, the Foreign Office sent 105 extra staff to Thailand. As of the end of last week, 51 of those staff remained in Thailand. Regarding Sri Lanka, a rapid deployment team of 10 FCO staff was sent from London to Colombo. That figure has now been reduced to one staff member remaining in Sri Lanka. However, one should remember that there are 80 British police officers helping to identify the bodies that remain in question.

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, we very much welcome what the Government have done so far, but is there not a case for going somewhat further? When the person who has died has been the main earner of the family, for instance, the family may need immediate access to savings and bank accounts in that person's name and so on. That is extremely difficult to achieve. Can the Government provide some help to people in that position? Does the problem which has arisen regarding death certificates in this case not indicate that, in due course, we should look more generally at relaxation of the seven-year rule so that death certificates can be issued whenever it is reasonably apparent that a person has disappeared and is dead?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, this really is a very difficult question. We must remember that this is the worst natural disaster in living memory. The problem is that the numbers of those who are missing and thought to have been involved, and those who are missing and may have been involved, are constantly moving. For example, as of today, 228 individuals are in the category of "missing and highly likely to be involved". Last week that figure was 251. When my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made the original Statement, on 10 January, it was 453.
	That is nothing to do with inefficiency on anyone's part. It is to do with the way in which people ring the call centres and say that they think that someone is missing. There is very often double-counting and names are transposed because people use different names, such as nicknames. The numbers may later decrease. So we must be very careful about this question of certification of the dead. The system has been changed in these exceptional circumstances, but I think that the changes will be fairly limited.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority. My noble friend has referred several times to the work of the family liaison officers provided by the police, who also provide forensic experts and work in the casualty bureaux. Can she confirm that the police services involved will be reimbursed from central funds for their extra costs?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am not in a position to give your Lordships an assurance on that. I was talking to officials in the Foreign Office only today about the costs of the operation. Of course all assistance must be given in the way that I have indicated to your Lordships, and there is an extensive package in relation to the individuals who are directly concerned. However, the question of accounting as between a government department and the police is still under consideration. If I may, I should like to pay a warm tribute to the police family liaison officers who have been involved. They have done an absolutely extraordinary job—a first-rate job—in keeping very distressed people in touch with what is happening. I shall try to give the noble Lord a specific answer to his question as soon as I am able.

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, what are the Government doing to help to speed up the progress of post-mortems of tsunami victims?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the real problem is not so much the question of post-mortems but the question of identifying people. That is the major area of distress for people at the moment. It is difficult to identify bodies reliably when they have been dead for some time. Sadly, that is particularly so when the cause of death is drowning. It is not my business to cause further distress to families who may listen to or read my comments, but I think that we all know that it is particularly difficult in these circumstances.
	The disaster victim identification process includes matching fingerprints, dental records and DNA, or a combination of those. I am afraid that the further we get on in the process, the more we are relying on DNA, and that takes quite some time. However, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has been in touch with the local authorities concerned and urged them to do everything they can to speed up the process.

The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, can the Minister say whether there are any estimates of the number of British children who have lost one or both parents as a result of the tsunami? Can she give further information on how these children's needs are being met?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I cannot give that information simply because, as I indicated a moment or two ago, the number of people who are missing but are likely to be involved is still changing week on week. There has been a significant change in the number in that category. Last week, it was some 251, and this week it is 228. The figure of 228 takes into account 54 individuals who we know are confirmed dead. However, another 241 individuals are possibly involved, and that is in addition to the figure of 228.
	We are alive to the problem of lone children. There has been a great deal of anxiety about them and, of course, those on the ground are doing what they can to help families. I know that some of them are extremely distressed either because they do not know where the children are when their parents are dead or because lone children are still there. Your Lordships may be interested to know that in the UK there is another category. Of those who were originally reported missing, more than 20,600 have now been found alive and well. I think that that gives your Lordships a fairly clear view of the enormity of what we have been dealing with.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, can the Minister say whether the definition of "British citizen" includes citizens of Commonwealth or other countries who are either naturalised or registered as British citizens and play a full part as such? Is any information available on that category of people, and what is being done to pass information to their families in languages with which they may be more familiar?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the categorisation for British citizen is the one that we normally use. I am not dealing here with any figures that may come, for example, from our overseas territories. When we deploy the family liaison services of the police, it is very important that individuals are dealt with in a language that they understand. That, too, is very well recognised.

Business

Lord Grocott: My Lords, with the leave of the House, later this afternoon a Statement on Iraq will be repeated by my noble friend Lady Symons. With agreement, it has been decided that that will come after the three opening speeches on the School Transport Bill—that is, after the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley.

Business of the House: Grand Committees

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I shall also speak to the other two Motions in my name.
	The first Motion refers the report of the Economic Affairs Committee on Monetary and Fiscal Policy to a debate in the Moses Room. The second refers a statutory instrument for debate in the Moses Room. It is expected that both those items of business will be taken on Monday, 21 February. The third Motion applies a time limit of one and a half hours to the debate on any Unstarred Question referred to the Moses Room. These are all in line with the decision of the House on 10 November last year.
	Moved, That the report of the Select Committee on Economic Affairs on Monetary and Fiscal Policy: Present Successes and Future Problems (3rd Report, Session 2003–04, HL Paper 176) be referred to a Grand Committee.—(Baroness Amos.)

Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I do not want to waste the time of the House but I think we are moving into difficult territory here when we talk about sending such things to a Grand Committee because, in fact, Grand Committee rules will not apply, particularly to the one where the time is being limited to an hour and a half. It is axiomatic in your Lordships' House that the Committee stage of a Bill, whether it takes place here or in Grand Committee, is open-ended and people can speak as often as they like and table amendments. I feel that the use of the phrase "to a Grand Committee" is not right. If we were to say that it should be taken "off the Floor of the House" or "in the Moses Room", or something along those lines, that might make more sense.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I thoroughly appreciate and understand the concerns raised. That is why, in my explanation, I talked about a debate in the Moses Room. I am very happy to take away this matter and discuss it with the Clerks, but I reassure the House that it is intended that procedures during debates in the Moses Room should be as close as possible to those on the Floor of the House.

Lord Peston: My Lords, perhaps I may ask my noble friend about exactly the same point as was made by the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff. I was puzzled when I first saw the wording and so I spoke to my Clerk. I was assured of precisely what my noble friend has just said—that is, we have to use the expression "sit in a Grand Committee" as a term of art but it has no meaning other than that we have our normal debate, we do not speak for too long and we speak only once. So—harking back to the mythology aspect of an earlier Question—I am perfectly willing to accept as part of our mythology that we have to talk in this way but, speaking as the person who will introduce the first of those debates, I was assured that there was no problem and I do not believe that there is.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Child Trust Funds (Amendment) Regulations 2005

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the draft regulations be referred to a Grand Committee.—(Baroness Amos.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Business of the House: Grand Committees

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I beg to move the third Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the debate on any Unstarred Question taken in a Grand Committee shall be limited to one and a half hours.—(Baroness Amos.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Renewable Energy Bill [HL]

Lord Redesdale: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
	Moved, That the order of commitment be discharged.—(Lord Redesdale.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

School Transport Bill

Lord Filkin: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
	I am pleased to be able to introduce this measure, which takes forward an important part of central and local government's actions to encourage greener, safer and healthier ways for pupils to travel to school.
	Perhaps I may start by sketching out some of the problems faced. Private car use on school runs has doubled in the past 20 years. The school run accounts for about one in five of all cars on the road in urban areas at the morning peak of 8.50 a.m. Increasing car use on schools runs contributes to congestion and pollution and has serious environmental and health implications.
	Against that background, school transport legislation has remained largely unchanged for more than 60 years. Parents, pupils and local authorities all tell us that it is outdated. First, it was designed for a simpler world, where few people owned cars and long journeys on foot or by bicycle were common. It assumes that pupils will walk three miles to school if they are over the age of eight. It was designed for a world without choice where all children attended their nearest school, and it was designed for a world where cars did not clog up the school gates and the roads leading to them.
	Parents, local authorities and our own research also suggest that current arrangements are inequitable. The rigid three-mile limit leads to real hardship, with free transport provided for pupils living one side of the three-mile limit and no assistance whatever for those living on the wrong side of that divide. DfES research also shows that families from lower income groups are more likely to have to pay than families from higher income groups. On average, these parents pay well over £7 per child per week.
	Local authorities also tell us that the system is inefficient—that this simplistic but prescriptive framework severely restricts their ability to target resources according to local needs and priorities. In September 2003, the Local Government Association addressed these issues in its report Children on the move—accessing excellence. It recommended piloting more flexible arrangements to explore new ways of providing home-to-school transport. The LGA argued that current arrangements could no longer be justified in terms of equity, efficiency or need, and that one size will not fit all. Different solutions to the problems of the school run are required in different areas. It argued that, given sufficient flexibility, local government was best placed to address those issues.
	Shortly after the LGA's report, the Government published Travelling to School: an action plan. This set out a series of measures to encourage more walking, cycling and bus use—measures that will increase health and bring environmental and safety benefits. One of these measures was a proposal to bring forward a Bill to update school transport legislation.
	In March 2004, the Government published a draft School Transport Bill for public consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny. The LGA welcomed the Bill, and we are grateful for its ongoing support and for the cross-party support for the Bill in local government more widely. Perhaps such support should not be surprising. The Government and the LGA are as one in the belief that local authorities are best placed to bring forward solutions tailored to their localities. The measures in the Bill are called for on a cross-party basis by the LGA. The Bill will give local authorities the opportunity to plan and implement school travel and transport arrangements best suited to their communities.
	Furthermore, one of the principles underpinning the Bill is that it is voluntary in nature. Following local consultation, local education authorities can apply to become pilots, putting forward more innovative proposals, but there is no compulsion in the Bill or its accompanying prospectus. If local education authorities want to remain with the status quo for whatever reason, they will be able to do so.
	Once the pilots start, if a scheme LEA wishes to withdraw from the new arrangements—because of changed circumstances or because the scheme is not working—it will be able to do so. Later on, if the pilots are successful, the travel scheme approach will be opened up to all local education authorities that want it. Again, there will be a voluntary approach and there will be no compulsion.
	The Bill is essentially deregulatory in nature, and is about giving more choice and discretion to local government and to local communities. It will enable local education authorities to run school travel schemes tailored to the needs of their area. Schemes will support greener, safer, healthier journeys to school, and will replace existing legislation contained in Section 509 of the Education Act 1996.
	Local education authorities that volunteer will make travel arrangements appropriate for their locality, for which they may charge affordable fares. Scheme authorities will be able to introduce a more equitable distribution of subsidies by removing the sharp divide between free and full-cost transport provision that currently exists. Let me make it clear that this is not a cost-cutting exercise. Fares will remain heavily subsidised, and the revenue generated will be reinvested in improvements to a local education authority's travel and transport arrangements. If applications to be a pilot fail to demonstrate this, they will not be approved.
	We want schemes to address issues surrounding the extended school day and after-school activities; the wider 14 to 19 agenda; transport to denominational schools; and, in Wales, to English and Welsh medium schools. We also want pilot authorities to bring forward innovative proposals to address safety issues. We want LEAs to be innovative. We do not want to prescribe what they will include in their schemes, but that may be a theme that we may revert to during our debate on the Bill.
	From our discussions with local authorities, we are aware of a number of emerging themes, for example, area-wide concessionary fare schemes enabling weekend and evening use of buses as well as school use; addressing inadequate public service provision through dedicated bus services; allowances to encourage more pupils to cycle; and using some of the revenue generated to increase the number of school crossing patrols and escorts for walking buses and for cycle training. In short, schemes will not have to focus exclusively on improvements to bus transport.
	The Bill defines "protected children" as children from lower-income families who will receive free transport where they attend their nearest school. The Bill defines a national minimum level of protection, but, as we make clear in the prospectus, we want local authorities to put forward definitions suitable for their locality.
	The Bill maintains the existing definition of walking distance as a minimum guarantee. Beyond that distance, local education authorities will continue to have an obligation to provide transport. But we want local authorities to go beyond this minimum. We expect them to address the needs of all pupils in the scheme area: those living within and outside walking distance. That can be done in variety of ways.
	Clause 2 allows for the travel scheme approach to be piloted in a limited number of local education authorities in England and Wales. All schemes will need the approval of the appropriate national authority; that is, the Secretary of State in England or the National Assembly in Wales. That will ensure that schemes consider the needs of all pupils and improve travel and transport arrangements.
	I believe that there is a wide consensus that the Bill's piloting approach is the right way to proceed. It will allow a small number of authorities to test the new arrangements and will allow others to learn from the experience of the pilots.
	The Bill also includes a power to repeal the Bill, if the travel scheme approach being piloted is not deemed to be a success. It could be used only after there has been sufficient time to evaluate schemes and we have reported to Parliament. The power to repeal lapses after the evaluation period.
	If the scheme approach is successful, it will be open to all authorities that want to adopt it but, as I have already indicated, the approach will remain voluntary. If local authorities want to continue under their current arrangements, they can.
	Much of the detail of how schemes might work is contained in the draft guidance to local education authorities, which is available to the House. The guidance covers the scheme's objectives; the local consultation exercises, which are so important; the integration of schemes with other forms of public transport; ensuring good quality and safe transport; any charging arrangements; addressing the needs of pupils with SEN or other disabilities; the application and approval process; and the evaluation and monitoring of schemes.
	This is a short Bill, with cross-party support in local government. It will introduce flexibilities for scheme authorities to address urgent cross-cutting issues, such as health, the environment and safety. The Bill is voluntary in nature, both during the pilot phase and in the longer term. It will enable local government to innovate and to make arrangements that meet the needs of local communities in the 21st century. I warmly commend the Bill to the House.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Filkin.)

Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, I am pleased to be able to speak in this debate from these Benches. As the Minister said, this is a small Bill, but one that could have profound implications for pupils and the education system far beyond the simple provision of school transport.
	Unsurprisingly, I wish to take what time I have today to concentrate on the controversial aspects of the Bill. As the Minister said, the arrangements under the Bill would replace Section 509 of the Education Act 1996, which requires LEAs to provide free transport for school pupils where it is considered necessary to facilitate attendance. LEAs that volunteer, by applying to become scheme authorities, may make travel arrangements that they consider appropriate, for which they may charge affordable fares. The Minister said several times during his speech that the scheme would be voluntary. The Bill includes a power to repeal if the pilots are not deemed a success, but it can be used only after the Government have had time to evaluate the schemes and have reported to Parliament, and it lapses after the evaluation period.
	The Minister said that the Bill is seen as deregulatory. I am not so sure about that, because it simply enables local authorities to volunteer to take part in the scheme. As for deregulation and setting local authorities free, it is an odd enabling of local government that gives councils no new powers or resources, bar the power to levy charges for a service that has been provided free for six decades. But it has been a feature of the past seven and a half years that a declaration of a new freedom usually turns out to cost someone more money. I hope the Minister will comment on that when he replies.
	Only a few weeks ago, I asked the Minister in a Written Question how many local authorities had expressed an interest in operating such a scheme. I received a rather non-committal reply, so I ask the question again. The Minister said that the Bill initially had cross-party support and some support from local authorities. Indeed, the local authority that I lead, Essex County Council, was interested to start with, but when we realised that local government would get all the blame for any charges, we backed off. Will the Minister comment on that? I understand that very few authorities are now interested in being a pilot on this scheme.
	For 60 years, it has not mattered how much a child's parents earn, how many siblings it has or whether it gets a free school meal. The right has been simple: if the journey is too long, the bus will come along. Under the Bill, parents earning more than about £13,000 a year could be charged for a service that is now provided free: it will be means tested. Such a step perhaps heralds the beginning of the end of free school transport. For 60 years, children living a long distance from their nearest school have had the right to use a school bus. The Bill has the potential to end that provision. That is a significant and worrying step. Anyone who has tried to interfere with school transport over the years will know that it is like dealing with dynamite. I have experienced that several times.
	Let me take this opportunity to highlight a number of other concerns that we have about the Bill. Too many vulnerable children could lose out. The Bill provides no specific protection for children with disabilities. There is only a guarantee that special educational needs children with a statement will continue to receive free school transport and not special educational needs children without a statement.
	During the Second Reading and Committee stages of the School Transport Bill in another place, there was strong cross-party consensus that the Bill must not disadvantage disabled children. The revised prospectus responds to many of the concerns raised, and we welcome the fact that the Government have now put the prospectus on a statutory footing. However, we believe that the basic duties in relation to consultation, entitlement and protection from charging should be clearly and explicitly written into the Bill.
	In addition, many children with special education needs travel long distances to access appropriate education where local mainstream schools are unable to meet their needs. It is very important that these children are not additionally penalised for the lack of appropriate provision locally by being charged according to the length of their journey.
	The Bill is based on a false analysis. The Government have given a seriously inaccurate account of how children get to school. Journeys to school by car remain a small minority of overall journeys. The Department for Transport's national travel survey shows that only 30 per cent of children are driven to school and that that proportion is falling. By contrast, nearly half—46 per cent—of children walk to school. That proportion seems to be rising and is officially thought to be under-recorded.
	The Bill is a further attack on the increased choice of schools. The Government seem confused about the objectives of the Bill. The then Secretary of State said that it will encourage more children to walk or cycle to their local school, yet that does not sit easily with Government policies to increase diversity in schools and to allow for the expression of parental preference. That approach encourages greater mobility. This was also a major concern that the Education and Skills Select Committee highlighted in its report last year.
	Most strongly, we feel that the Bill is a redirection of resources from rural to urban areas. The present system of funding school transport is based on distance criteria. It inevitably means that a large proportion of resources are directed to areas where significant numbers of children live several miles from their nearest school. The Government are already providing far less funding per pupil for rural areas than for urban areas. That is at the heart of the cross-party campaign mounted by the f40 Group of local education authorities, which seeks a fairer basis for distributing resources.
	The Bill is often described by Ministers as merely an enabling mechanism for a few pilot areas. It includes a provision to make its changes permanent and, in all probability, universal, regardless of the outcome of the pilots. I would, therefore, like to ask the Minister what criteria and what timeframe will be used to judge whether the pilots have been successful and whether this process will be conducted in public.
	The practical steps needed to encourage further expansion of alternatives to car usage, such as better cycle facilities in schools or greater co-ordination of bus and school timetables, do not require this legislation.
	The fear of "stranger danger", which leads some parents to resist any option involving their children travelling on their own, relates to worries about the state of our society and of our criminal justice system that will not be addressed in any way by this legislation.
	Parents who decide that they cannot afford to pay £400 or £500 a year may decide to change their work patterns and take their children to school by car, thereby negating the entire object of the exercise. It would bring more cars on to the road. This is an issue that the Government could address nationally, without any of the measures in the Bill.
	We cannot support this legislation because it removes the right to use free school transport if the journey is too long, which has been enjoyed by English and Welsh people for more than 60 years. It means more means-testing, higher costs for hard-pressed parents and, worst of all, it is possibly a new stealth tax on families living in rural areas.
	The Bill can be seen as both an over-reaction and a distraction. Therefore, we await with interest the Committee stage and putting our points forward.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, perhaps I may say at the outset that in general we on these Benches believe that local authorities should have power to make suitable arrangements for their local area in relation to transport matters and the related welfare of the children who attend their schools. I also accept that there have long been major congestion and road safety problems around school gates in the morning and afternoon and that many children do not get anywhere enough exercise. There are also escalating costs relating to school transport.
	However, in relation to the Bill, I believe it is our duty to ensure, in giving authorities increased flexibility to make their own arrangements, that, first, children who are currently entitled to free travel are protected; secondly, that poor families are protected, and large families have their travel costs capped; thirdly, that there is no barrier to access to the best schools or the nearest suitable school for all children who are able to obtain a place on the basis of their ability to pay for transport—a suitable school may include those of the family's religious denomination or one that teaches in the family's preferred language, such as Welsh; and, fourthly, that proper consideration is given to the needs of children with physical or mental disabilities and their family circumstances, even when they live within the two or three-mile limit. That should include all the time they are in school, even beyond 16, since many such children take longer to reach an equivalent educational standard than children without such problems.
	Before coming to my major concerns, perhaps I may make a few general comments. I should like to be convinced that the criteria for approval of schemes (Paragraph 11 of the new schedule, inserted by Clause 1(2)) and evaluation of success (Paragraph 10 of the new schedule) will not just be about saving money, although I was concerned to read in the prospectus that:
	"Schemes will focus on measures that meet the needs of LEAs".
	I would prefer them to focus on the needs of children. What sort of consultation with children will be required? Will LEAs be required to publish the opinions of children about the schemes? My preferred criteria are: reducing congestion and environmental pollution; ensuring and improving the safety and health of children; and equality of access.
	Paragraph 7 of the prospectus says that the DfES and the Welsh Assembly will evaluate the schemes each year and make the results available to other LEAs. Will the evaluations also be made public—for example, on the DfES website? Indeed, will the Minister undertake to publish the details of such schemes that obtain his department's approval in the interests of open government?
	Your Lordships might have noticed the reference in paragraph 13 of the Explanatory Notes. It states:
	"No charge may be made . . . for travel arrangements for children from low income families, unless the child has been given an opportunity to attend a suitable school closer to his home but chooses to attend one further afield".
	In that context, what is meant by "a suitable school"? How much does parental choice count for? What about parents who wish to send their child to a denominational or a Welsh-speaking school? This is a major concern for many families who would not regard a secular state school as "suitable".
	Naturally, LEAs will want to make their money go further, and making maximum use of dedicated school buses, such as for social services and hospital visits, makes sense; so does staggering the start and finish times of schools within reason. However, if that is being considered, it is essential to consult and obtain the co-operation of teachers and other staff, since, in effect, their working conditions are being varied and it may have an effect on their ability to see their own children safely off to school. Will the Minister guarantee that LEAs will have to do that? More frequent and staggered school bus schedules, however, could be very helpful to schools becoming extended schools, providing breakfast and homework clubs and to those children who wish to stay on for sports and other clubs, which so much enrich their educational experience.
	I welcome the note in the prospectus that schemes must take on the task of getting all local children to school in a safe and suitable way and not just those for whom the LEA has heretofore had transport responsibility; that is those living over two or three miles away, depending on their age. But I have particular concerns about the suggestion that children in rural areas, who nearly always live two or three miles from schools, are penalised by a new charge. It is expensive enough for those living in the country to reach essential services, such as health services, as recently highlighted by the BMA, without a service which has previously been provided free being charged for.
	Local consultation is necessary, not just in revoking a scheme, but in setting it up in the first place. However, the Government must realise that any charging of those who have had free transport in the past will be unpopular and LEAs will have to demonstrate major benefits or the local community will be very unhappy and may vent their spleen at the ballot box. There is also the danger that charges that are not extremely modest may stimulate parents to continue to take their children to school by car, thus defeating one of the stated aims of the Bill. I hope that the Government will adhere firmly to the comment about that in the prospectus.
	I notice that under Clause 2, LEAs are free to remain within the existing legislation. The Minister confirmed that today. I welcome the amendment made in another place that allows LEAs to opt out unilaterally, with local consultation, but without having to get the permission of the Secretary of State, if they are convinced that they have got on the wrong bus, as it were.
	Clause 3 gives the Secretary of State the power to repeal the measures if they are not successful. That prompts me to echo the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, and to ask the Minister to repeat at the Dispatch Box what he said to us in private: that cash savings will not be a major criterion of success. Perhaps he will tell us what is.
	We have heard from some local authorities that are keen to get started on one of the pilot schemes. They tell us that they may be able to provide travel concessions that allow children and young people to travel free outside school hours using their bus passes. I would welcome that, because it could have a big effect on social inclusion and on the ability of children to take part in sport or arts and to travel to leisure activities in local towns if they live in a village where there is little or nothing for a young person to do. "Nothing to do", is often cited as one of the causes of anti-social behaviour, so anything that helps young people to access useful or enjoyable activities must be welcomed.
	Importantly, a good experience of travelling on public transport or dedicated school buses could establish a lifetime habit of using public transport that could benefit us all and the future of the planet. Can the Minister tell us more about what is envisaged for 16 and 17 year-olds in sixth forms, as they are beyond compulsory school age? If the Tomlinson vision of 14 to 19 provision is to be achieved, there must be good services to other providers, such as FE colleges.
	My major concern about the Bill is about children with special educational needs. As I understand it, about 65 per cent of the cost to LEAs of school transport is taken up by providing services to SEN children. That presents a great temptation to those authorities to save money by looking for ways to erode the rights of those children to free provision. That is what I shall be seeking to address as the Bill passes through your Lordships' House.
	Section 509 of the Education Act 1996 requires local authorities to provide or make arrangements for home-to-school transport in cases where it believes that it is "necessary". That has been interpreted to mean when the child lives either two miles from the school, if he is under eight, or three miles, if he is more than eight. Section 509(2) provides that such transport must be free. There has been no particular separate provision for children with special needs, but there has been a general understanding that the application of the two or three-mile limit to such children is generally inappropriate, as many cannot walk significant distances without stress and some, of course, cannot walk at all.
	Until the advent of the Bill, it has never been suggested that parents of children with special needs should take on obligations by driving children to school in their own cars or paying for taxis. In deciding whether transport is necessary, the focus has been on the child's needs and ability to make the journey to school. That has been reflected in past DfES guidance. However, there is concern among some who represent special needs children and their families that the content of the Bill is likely to undermine their right to free transport arranged by the LEA. It will do so in two ways.
	First, the authorities involved in the pilot schemes will have no separate obligation under Section 509(1) to consider whether transport is necessary. They will have a duty to make arrangements only under paragraph 3(1) of Schedule 35B to the Act, which appears to catch only those who would previously have qualified under the walking distance criteria. That could allow local authorities to escape their general obligation under Section 509 to consider the position of children living inside the walking limits if they, too, need transport.
	Secondly, by introducing the concept of charging, the whole interpretation of the word "necessary" has shifted from whether the child can walk—a relatively straightforward test—to other considerations, such as whether the family can pay, with or without a subsidy; whether the parent is able to escort the child; whether the family has a car; or whether it is in receipt of disability living allowance. That raises complex issues of family means, routines, circumstances, employment status, other children or dependants and how much should reasonably be expected of family members.
	Taken together, those provisions could seriously undermine the position of children with special educational needs unless it is made explicit in the Bill that schemes must be designed in line with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and ensure that the family of a disabled child does not incur additional costs because of that disability. Sadly, when that matter was raised in another place, the Minister's reply seemed to indicate that he believed that those children's rights would be protected by their statements of special educational need. That is not now the case, for two reasons.
	First, the former practice of LEAs of itemising transport needs in part 6 of the statement has fallen by the wayside, due to the Government's revised code of practice of November 2001, which states in paragraph 8.89:
	"Transport should only be recorded in the statement in part 6 in exceptional cases, where the child has particular transport needs".
	It goes on to say that the LEA will have general policies about that that should be issued to parents and that the policies should set out those transport arrangements that are over and above those required by Section 509 of the Education Act 1996.
	Formerly, if the need for transport was itemised in the statement and failed to be provided, that could be easily challenged by judicial review. Under the revised code of practice, a remedy must be built around the legality of the specific scheme, which is a much less clear-cut matter.
	The second problem with seeing the statement as a safeguard is that the willingness of local authorities to issue statements has reduced considerably in recent years. That has been encouraged by the Government, who have instead sought to devolve special educational needs funding to school level, for schools to make their own arrangements at a lower stage of the code of practice. However well a school arranges for the education of those children, it cannot safeguard their transport. Indeed, many vulnerable children do not have a statement at all.
	It may be that authorities outside the pilot schemes will continue under the existing law and case law conventions. However, there is already evidence that the issues raised by the Bill are being seized on by some local authorities substantially to alter the provision and eligibility criteria for special needs transport from what it has previously been.
	I looked hopefully in the prospectus to see if there was anything to set my mind at rest about that. Sadly, it left me even more concerned when I read in paragraph 37 that,
	"LEAs have considerable discretion in making those arrangements and may take into account other forms of help for these categories of pupils, such as the mobility allowance and provision of a 'motability' car".
	Home-to-school costs can easily take up the whole of the mobility allowance and more, leaving nothing to get disabled children around for the rest of their lives.
	I hope that I have been able to outline my concerns. I have a number of real examples of how those concerns are playing out in a number of local authorities in the north-east. I will be tabling amendments to try to protect those vulnerable children, both within and without the pilot schemes, and will use the debate on them to give your Lordships more details. In the mean time, I look forward to hearing whether the Minister can say anything to allay my fears.

Iraq: Elections

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. The Statement is as follows:
	"With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a Statement on the elections that were held in Iraq yesterday. First, however, let me deal with the tragic crash of the RAF C130 Hercules aircraft in Iraq yesterday. As the House will be aware, the aircraft crashed approximately 30 kilometres to the north-west of Baghdad at half past four in the afternoon, Iraq time, yesterday. The aircraft was flying from Baghdad International Airport to Balad airbase. The site has been secured, and we are investigating the cause of the crash. The House will understand that it would be wrong at this stage to speculate about possible causes of the crash.
	"Ten United Kingdom service personnel were on board the aircraft and are presumed killed: nine from the Royal Air Force and one from the Army. Their next of kin are being informed. The Ministry of Defence will release the names of those who were on board only once this process is complete and the families have been given time to inform other loved ones and friends. I know that the House will join me in sending our deepest condolences and sympathy to the families of these brave men and to their comrades.
	"Yesterday's elections in Iraq demonstrated the vital importance of what those brave British service men, along with thousands of their comrades, have been helping to achieve there.
	"Only two years ago, Iraq was still under the sway of one of the most ruthless dictators in the world. Dissent was punishable by torture and summary execution, with an estimated 300,000 people buried in mass graves. The last time that the Iraqi people voted was in the staged elections of Saddam's tyranny—with one candidate and a 100 per cent majority for a man who had been ruthlessly defying the will of the United Nations for 12 long years.
	"Yesterday, in contrast, the elections took place in implementation of a mandate from the United Nations, for it was the Security Council in Resolution 1546 which laid down the timetable and process for these elections and the steps which will follow. Yesterday, the Iraqi people had the choice of some 8,000 candidates for the new National Assembly, and 11,000 candidates in regional and Kurdish elections, from 111 different political parties and entities. One third of the candidates were women.
	"While turnout figures will not be available for some days, it is already clear from initial estimates that a substantial proportion of the Iraqi population took part in these elections. Turnout appears to have been especially high in the north and south of the country, among both men and women.
	"The turnout in Sunni majority areas was lower, mainly because of the high penetration of insurgents threatening to kill voters. However, in other areas where Sunni Arabs were able to vote freely, they appear to have done so in good numbers. Simon Collis, British Consul-General in Basra, told me that some 50 per cent of Sunnis there may have voted. He described the 'extraordinary atmosphere' in Basra as families went out to vote, taking along their children dressed in their smartest festive clothing.
	"In the mixed suburbs of Baghdad, the largest centre of the Sunni population, polling was brisk. In Mosul, extra polling stations had to be opened when turnout exceeded expectations.
	"Yesterday's elections were monitored by some 22,000 domestic election observers, 33,000 party officials and some 120 international monitors accredited to the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. I arranged that three of the monitors should come from this House on an all-party basis: the honourable Members for the Forest of Dean (Diana Organ), Blaby (Andrew Robathan) and Torridge and West Devon (John Burnett). My right honourable friend for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) also observed the elections.
	"Electoral procedures appear to have worked efficiently throughout the country. Voting took place in private; proof of identity was demanded; indelible ink was used to stop people voting more than once. Jean-Pierre Kingsley, the Canadian head of the International Mission for Iraqi Elections, has described the election as a 'very good process'. My honourable friend the Member for the Forest of Dean, Diana Organ, described arrangements in the town of Maysan as 'model'.
	"I pay tribute to the Independent Electoral Commission and to its advisers from the United Nations, led by Mr Carlos Valenzuela, for their outstanding work in assisting the Iraqis and ensuring that yesterday's elections ran smoothly. I also want to thank the staff of the British Embassy in Baghdad, especially Andrea Reidy, for the excellent job that they did in covering the elections.
	"No one expected these first free elections in half a century to be perfect. But they went better than many had anticipated, and they are all the more remarkable given the circumstances in which they were held.
	"We have grown used to insurgents in Iraq attacking any and every group and organisation working to rebuild the country. The Iraqi people, most of all, have suffered from this terrorist violence. And the insurgents had made clear that they would use the vilest means possible to stop yesterday's elections from running smoothly. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the insurgency in Iraq, declared last week that democracy was an 'evil principle'. He and his henchmen—many, like him, not Iraqis themselves—sent suicide bombers to attack polling stations and other areas associated with the elections.
	"Yesterday's elections represent a real blow to this disgusting campaign of violence and intimidation. In Sadr City, in Baghdad, for example, a mortar attack at a polling station in a local school left a number of people wounded. However, multinational forces troops at the site report that people simply helped the wounded, and then along with those who could, rejoined the queue to vote. In Sunni areas in central Iraq, large groups of people defied terrorist intimidation and walked several kilometres to polling stations to cast their votes.
	"There are many other such stories from across Iraq. It is impossible not to be moved by them, and by the countless examples reported from Iraq of those millions of people determined to shape their country's future, taking a profound joy in casting their first democratic vote in that process. This was a moving demonstration that democracy and freedom are universal values, to which people everywhere aspire.
	"I pay tribute to the Iraqi security and police forces and the troops of the UN-mandated multinational force, who helped to maintain security around the polling stations across Iraq. Several policemen were killed when suicide bombers, unable to get through their rigorous searches, blew themselves up. Our thoughts are with their families and those of all the Iraqis who lost their lives in yesterday's violence. The fact that not a single suicide bomber managed to get through the security cordons around the polling stations is a great tribute to the bravery and effectiveness of Iraq's security forces.
	"As Iraq's Interim Prime Minister, Dr Ayad Allawi, said this morning,
	"There will still be violence, but the terrorists now know that they cannot win".
	We have seen the determination of the Iraqi people to participate in building a more secure and democratic future for their country. We now need to support them as they continue that process.
	"The Independent Electoral Commission expects to publish its results within 10 days of the elections, and to certify those results by 20 February.
	"Yesterday's elections were for a Transitional National Assembly of 275 members. Its first task will be to elect a three-person presidency, which will in turn appoint a Prime Minister and Cabinet, whom the Assembly will be asked to approve. This Iraqi Transitional Government will then be sworn in and the Interim Government will dissolve. We expect this to take place by the end of February. The new Assembly will then begin work on the next stage of the political process in Iraq, as set out in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1546: the drafting of a permanent constitution for Iraq.
	"We will support the efforts of the Assembly to include the widest possible representation in this process, especially of the Sunni political groups which did not participate in the elections or which failed to win seats because of the intimidation of Sunni voters and the resulting low turnout in some of these areas.
	"Many Iraqi political and religious leaders, including Ayatollah Sistani, have made clear their wish to include Sunni groups in this process. I welcome Prime Minister Allawi's call earlier today for a,
	"new national dialogue that guarantees that all Iraqis have a voice in the next government".
	There is also an important safeguard for both the Sunni and Kurdish minorities in the Transitional Administrative Law, under whose terms the constitution will need to be approved. The constitution must not only receive an absolute majority of votes in a referendum, but in addition can be blocked by two-thirds of voters in any three of the country's 18 provinces.
	"The United Kingdom will continue to offer every support to the political process in Iraq, working with our international partners including through the European Union. We will seek an early meeting of the Sharm el-Sheikh group of Iraq's neighbours and G8 countries to build on international support for Iraq, and we will continue to work for a central role for the United Nations in supporting the political process.
	"Meanwhile, the British troops in the UN-mandated multinational force and our many civilian staff in Iraq, led by our ambassador, Edward Chaplin, will continue to help to rebuild the country and to increase the capacity and effectiveness of Iraq's security forces. I pay tribute to all the British personnel in Iraq, both military and civilian, who are doing this work with such courage and dedication in such difficult and dangerous circumstances.
	"There have been deep divisions over Iraq in the last two years, but this election should unite us all. Yesterday, the Iraqi people in their millions showed their wish to embrace freedom and to shape the destiny of their country. As they pursue that historic endeavour, the United Kingdom will continue to offer them every support".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am sure that all your Lordships are extremely grateful to the Minister for repeating this lengthy and very important Statement. I have not seen a copy in advance, but what I hear from her is immensely encouraging. Perhaps I may add straightaway that, in relation to the Hercules disaster, we on this side join Ministers in sending our deepest sympathies and condolences to those who have been bereaved on an otherwise happier day. That is a great sadness. I shall return to that incident in a moment.
	As far as the elections are concerned, there is obviously a long way to go, but this is without question a very good step. I notice that even the most persistently negative commentators in our press, who all along have tried to bad-mouth the prospect of the election, are hard pressed in today's editions to make the worst of it, although they are always trying. The doomsters—there have been plenty of them everywhere all along—have on this occasion been proved quite wrong.
	Like the Minister, I pay warm tribute to the brave Iraqi people; the UN officials; our steadfast security forces; the Iraqi officials; and the independent Electoral Commission, which organised this election and has seen it through effectively, often at enormous personal risk. It is difficult to imagine some of the risks that those people have had to run. I draw particular encouragement, as does the Minister, from the signs that quite a lot of Sunnis voted. I am told that they were queuing to vote even in Fallujah, although not in some areas where it was simply impossible. But in Baghdad generally there seems to have been a heavy turnout. I understand that the overall turnout was around 60 per cent, which is 1 per cent more than that in the previous general election in this country. So that is not bad at all.
	Of course, the elections were marred by violence, particularly, as I have already said, by the tragic Hercules crash. I understand that it is obviously very difficult to answer any precise questions about why this happened, but, later on, it would be good to know whether it was shot down by missiles and what it was doing on a rather unusual route for the RAF Hercules planes.
	As the Minister reminded us, the new parliament and government will now draw up a constitution and elect another new parliament—in December, I believe—to be approved by national referendum. Three provinces would be able to block it, which could place a remarkable degree of power in certain hands. Is that the correct pattern? Does the Minister agree that the key issue, for us here anyway, is what exact role the multilateral forces will now play and how long our troops will stay there? Does she agree that fixing a date for exit would be a mistake and that we should stay for as long as the new Iraqi Government want us there? That must be the guide and the criterion for our continued presence and our continued efforts in Iraq.
	Can the Minister bring us up to date on another key feature which will also determine how long we are needed in Iraq—that is, the training of the Iraqi soldiers and police force to maintain future security? I understand that the goal is to train a force of 120,000 people, but reports suggest that the numbers so far are dramatically lower. It would be good to know the real position.
	Aside from politics, are not the priorities now, first, as the noble Baroness said, to ensure that the Sunnis are involved—although they are a minority, they have for years been top dog, as it were, and they must be properly involved, as very many are willing to be—and, secondly, to get reconstruction really going? In that context, could the Minister comment on reports that almost £5 billion of Iraqi oil revenue seems to be missing from the fund that was set up for reconstruction after the invasion? That is, of course, separate from the issue of what happened to the money in the Oil for Food programme scandal, when Saddam was still in place.
	Those of us who supported the invasion and the removal of the monstrous and evil Saddam and who have tried, over the many months since then, to see the positive side, even though terrible mistakes and policy misjudgments have undoubtedly been made, can now point to definite progress. I recognise that one poll does not deliver democracy. On the contrary, it can deliver and often has delivered the opposite, as we who knew Europe in the previous century will never forget. More understanding is needed, particularly from the theorists and academics on both sides of the Atlantic, of the different types of democratic involvement and pluralist governance that can take root in different societies.
	That said, it is a good day for the Middle East. One cannot help hoping that it will lead to wider peace and harmony in the whole region. For that, we would all be deeply thankful.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, we recognise the tremendous tragedy of the aircraft crash. We also recognise that the Government, for sensible reasons, cannot tell us much more about it at present. I hope that the Minister will say as much as she is able and will keep us informed as the circumstances become clearer.
	We congratulate the Government on the part that they have taken in what has clearly been a remarkably courageous and successful vote. It was for that reason that we, like other parties, supported the plans to hold the vote now and not, as some wished, postpone it. In the circumstances, it is right to restore sovereignty to the Iraqi people as soon as possible. I am not sure that, as a party deeply dedicated to proportional representation, we would have chosen quite so perfect a system of proportional representation as the one chosen here. Its implications for Israeli politics have, over the years, not been entirely happy. The Iraqis must now own and take control of the process, as they move on not only to form their own government but to design their constitution and move to the next stage of elections.
	The worst outcome from now on would be for the new government to appear still to be beholden to occupying forces. I hope that the Minister will say a little more about the moves that will be signalled with regard to a reduction in the role of the United States and the other occupying powers and the reduction and eventual withdrawal of occupying forces. Ministers have talked about the distinction between a timeline and a timetable. I would be interested to hear the Minister tell us what that distinction is. It was not entirely clear from the Statement the other day.
	It is also extremely important to the British how our withdrawal is co-ordinated with that of other countries. A number of unilateral decisions appear to be under way. If other countries in the multinational division withdraw, will Her Majesty's Government take over their responsibilities in the interim, as we appear to be doing with the Dutch? Does that necessarily imply that we may be willing to increase the British forces there?
	Is it the Government's understanding that the United States also intends to move towards complete withdrawal in a recognisable time-span and towards the complete restoration of sovereignty to the Iraqi Government? There have been disturbing stories in the US press in the past week or two about the establishment by the United States of permanent bases in Iraq. That would be a huge mistake, and we would like some reassurance that Her Majesty's Government's understanding is that all outside forces will withdraw within a foreseeable period.
	We also ask about the impact on the wider Middle East, which ought to be very positive. On Iran, we have strongly supported the position of the British Government, with the French and German Foreign Ministers, to take a firm line on the nuclear issue, but to encourage change towards greater democratisation from within. As regards Saudi Arabia, is there anything that our Government and other European governments can do to encourage the very slow process of change under way there? For the rest of the Middle East, the European Union's Barcelona Process appears to be stalled, but assistance to political, economic and social development is clearly vital.
	Can the Minister also tell us when the third UN human development report on the Middle East will be published? Many of us were extremely impressed by the first and second UN human development reports, which were written by a distinguished group of Arab columnists, political scientists and sociologists. I last heard that the United States Government had blocked the publication of the third UN human development report because it deals with the politics of the region, which, of course, involves the Middle East peace process.
	Our last question concerns how this is seen by the Government as feeding into the process which, again, we hope will move forward in Gaza. Are the Government able to tell us more than we have yet learnt about the purpose and expectations of the meeting to be held in London on 1 March?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Wallace of Saltaire, for their response to the Statement. I, too, believe that this has been a very encouraging step forward in moving towards democracy in Iraq. I am grateful to the noble Lords for expressing their condolences to the families and loved ones of those affected by the Hercules air crash.
	There is not a great deal more that I can say. The Statement has made very clear that this happened yesterday afternoon, that the site of the crash has been secured and that it is being searched in an attempt to ascertain the cause of the crash. There are a number of reports about what that cause may be. A full investigation is under way, which will take into account all the possibilities. But I am not in a position to confirm or deny any of the speculation that, understandably, we have seen circulating on that issue.
	I, like the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, think that the main congratulations should go to the Iraqi people, who showed courage throughout Iraq in going to their elections. They were, of course, helped by the independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, which was being advised by the United Nations, the great work carried out by Carina Pirelli in the United States and by Carlos Valenzuela on the ground.
	As the Statement indicated, the turnout of Sunnis appears to have been lower. None the less, in some of the Sunni strongholds there appear to have been queues. The Statement states that polling stations had to be opened in Mosul. I am sure that your Lordships will have seen that there were queues in Fallujah. We understand that voting took place in a fairly healthy way in Tikrit. Adnan Pachachi, one of the leaders of the Sunni community in Iraq, said that he was pleased about the voting of the Sunni population in Baghdad.
	There was, of course, violence, as the interim Prime Minister Allawi acknowledged in his statement this morning. He instanced, for example, seven suicide bombers who attempted to attack polling stations. He made the point that all seven people were foreigners—they were not Iraqis—and that they were all stopped by the Iraqi security forces. Of course, there were other attacks, but those were the points that he centred on in his statement.
	Both noble Lords are right that one of the really important issues for those who are elected to the 275-strong Transitional National Assembly will be the setting up of the constitution, which must have the widest possible consensus drawn from among the Iraqi people.
	The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, asked what role and implications that had for the multinational forces and whether I agreed that it would be a "mistake" to fix a date for those forces to leave Iraq. Yes, I agree that that is right: it would be a mistake to do that. The Iraqi forces are being trained and it is going reasonably well. There are not necessarily absolute timelines that can be followed, but certainly training has been going on in Iraq and, now, in some of the neighbouring countries.
	As regards the future of the multinational force, the elections yesterday have given a new legitimacy to an Iraqi-appointed government. As a result of those elections, there will be a three-strong presidency put into place. That group will put forward a Prime Minister and other members of the Cabinet, who will have to be approved by the Transitional National Assembly. That is a different system to ours, but it is perfectly respectable. It means that a future Iraqi government in this interim period before the elections at the end of the year will have greater legitimacy in the eyes of their people than the government have at present.
	The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, asked me what will be done about Sunni involvement. Under the transitional administrative law, it is the duty of those drawing up the constitution to consult with all parties, not just those in the Transitional National Assembly. Some commentators have got the idea that if people are not members of that national assembly, they have no role in drawing up the constitution. That simply is not true. There is a positive duty to consult outside. As the Statement indicated, there is also the safeguard of ensuring that should three or more of the governorates vote against the constitution, ultimately, the constitution will fall.
	The noble Lord also asked questions about money for reconstruction, which he said, according to some reports, has gone astray, and the Oil for Food programme. As the noble Lord knows, that is a matter of considerable concern among the international community. I am not certain how far those investigations have got, although, as we all know, currently, there is a great deal of work going on within the UN on that. Perhaps I will be able to report back in due course.
	The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, said, "One poll does not deliver democracy". No, it does not, but it can provide a good and encouraging start for this stage in the process, which we look forward to continuing.
	The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, asked about restoring sovereignty. I have answered by implication. I believe that this will be a greater legitimacy for the incoming government—temporary as they will be. There will be further elections towards the end of the year after the referendum on the constitution.
	The Transitional National Assembly has to be certified by 20 February, although we hope that we will get some preliminary results on the elections within about 10 days, which then have to be made official through a certification process. I hope that we will have better figures on turnout during the next 48 hours, which will give us an indication of how patchy the turnout was in some areas. We know that it has been very high in the Kurdish areas and in the Shia south. But, of course, the concern will be over the Sunni areas.
	The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, was anxious about the distinction between timeline and timetable. That is quite right. Prime Minister Allawi put forward a number of instances that had to follow sequentially in the build-up of the Iraqi forces in the next few months. The timeline set out for the election was a six-stage plan, which was put forward by interim Prime Minister Allawi. I can make sure that a copy of that goes into the Library of your Lordships' House. The distinction to make is that no times or dates have been added to the timeline. It is not a timetable as such, but a series of sequential events that follow upon each other.
	On force numbers, a Written Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence and, I think, put out in your Lordships' House by my noble friend Lord Bach on 27 January last, made clear that approximately 220 additional UK troops would replace the Dutch troops to whom the noble Lord referred.
	The impact on the wider Middle East is a question that goes some way beyond the ambit of the Statement itself. I would say only that I do not think that any sensible person sincerely believes that, in a democratic pattern for the Middle East, one size fits all—or certainly no one who travels in the area and sees countries as different as Morocco on the one hand and Saudi Arabia on the other. No one could harbour illusions of the possibility of there being a formula whereby one size would fit all. But even in a country like Saudi Arabia, municipal elections were held recently. While it is true that women were not allowed to vote, none the less progress is being made on some electoral issues which would have seemed unthinkable only a few years ago.
	We want to inject some new and what I would call very practical energy into the Barcelona process, and we shall have the opportunity to do so during our presidency later this year. And like the noble Lord I, too, look forward to the further UNDP report on development in the Arab world.
	We have talked about the purposes of the meeting scheduled for 1 March on Israel/Palestine. I shall be happy to talk about it further with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, and any other noble Lords who wish to do so, on a future occasion. That meeting is very different in nature.

Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, would my noble friend care to comment on the attitude of George Galloway and people who think like him? They see the continuation of terror and the rejoicing of terrorists as a sample of what we can expect. Will she also talk about the needs of the Iraqi people? Obviously those needs have to be formulated by the Iraqi Government. However, the Iraqi people have desperate needs in terms of social services and infrastructure, elements of which are water and transport. What contribution are we able to make, or what are we prepared to say if we cannot make a positive contribution at present? In my view, the message we have to impart is most important.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis. When he asks me whether I would like to comment on the attitude of certain individuals, quite honestly, my answer to that is no, not really. I think that the Iraqi people have borne more than adequate testimony to what they want and have given a far better, stronger and more articulate answer to those who take the view of the sort described by my noble friend than ever I could from this Dispatch Box. The courage and determination of the Iraqi people to get to the polls yesterday is to be applauded. Like many noble Lords, I watched those who are first-time voters walking along with elderly people who had to be carried. They were clearly determined not to be kept at home, no matter what the threat to their personal safety. Watching that yesterday was a truly humbling experience.
	On the question of infrastructure, of course we want to see developments move faster. As my noble friend will know, we have put aside a great deal of money. Moreover, many British people, not only in our Armed Forces, but also from civilian life in the form of many private sector companies, are out there doing what they can to help rebuild Iraq. They are working to improve the major facilities such as water and electricity supplies, as well as transport systems. We have a rather good fact sheet on this which I shall be happy to send to my noble friend if he would find it helpful.
	{**4**}

The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, we on these Benches also express our deep sorrow at the news of the crash of the RAF plane, and our prayers are with those bereaved and distressed. We also share in the relief that the elections held yesterday have had so positive an outcome. However, there seems to be an irony here. Saddam Hussein was a brutal and evil dictator, yet in his fascist regime there was little division either between the religious faiths or within them. His was a very secular society, if brutal.
	It is sad that the country now runs the risk of dividing along religious lines, and it is particularly sad to us that many from the ancient Christian Church are fleeing the country because they believe that their lives are in danger and that they have no future in Iraq. Can the Minister give any assurance that urgent attention will be paid to this sad state of affairs?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate for what he has said. Some of the unsung heroes of this conflict have been our service padres, who at times during the military conflict have borne a very heavy burden. On behalf of my colleagues I should like to say that our service padres have done a first class job.
	The right reverend Prelate remarked that it is ironic that under a brutal dictator there was little division between the faiths. I am sorry to say that I disagree with him about that; there was a great deal of division, but the fact is that it was simply never heard. Under the auspices of the United Nations, we believe that some 300,000 people are buried in mass graves. That bears adequate testimony to the fact that there was enormous division along religious lines. Many of the Shia faith who did try to offer alternatives to domination by a Saddam-led Sunni minority found themselves either in prison or, worse, in one of those mass graves.
	Of necessity, we have to describe the Iraqis as Sunni, Shia, Kurd or Turkoman because that is the way Iraq, whose territorial integrity is enormously important, now openly perceives itself whereas before it did so rather more covertly. However, it is encouraging to note that leaders as different as the secular leader Mr Allawi, the clerical leader Ayatollah Sistani, Mr Pachachi from the Sunni side and the admirable Kurds now all say that Iraq has to pull together and that this is the real opportunity for it to do so. I urge the right reverend Prelate to look at what Mr Allawi said this morning about trying to bring all these groups together. Further, Kofi Annan pointed out that whether people voted or did not vote because they were too afraid, now is the time for Iraq to come together as a country and to back the democratic process.

Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, can the Minister tell us a little about American intentions as regards making up its forces? A distinguished American general, when interviewed on the box the other night, said that double the number were needed. The question of security is all important if the newly elected members of the temporary government are to form a constitution. Apparently we have put more troops in even though our areas are under control. However, the Baghdad area is out of control. Will the Americans put more troops on the ground, and are we urging them to do so?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the Americans have put in more troops in order to provide security for the election process, but I am afraid that the noble Lord may be disappointed with my full answer, which is the same as that I would make if we were talking about the United Kingdom. Troop numbers are kept under review and will continue to be kept under review in consultation with Ministers of the incoming temporary Iraqi government. However, this is something that all members of the multinational force will want to talk about, not least because they will want to consult the incoming Ministers on the Iraqi side.

Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, I echo the expressions of sympathy and admiration already made from the Front Benches. I welcome the tone and style with which the Minister has answered the questions put to her.
	Does the Minister believe that there is sufficiently wide appreciation of the extent to which the comforting phrase "the Iraqi people" may, consciously or unconsciously, mislead us in assessing the complexity of the problem that lies ahead? We are dealing, are we not, with an ethnically and religiously diverse society as explosive as many from which this country has withdrawn historically in our post-imperial era? Is it not of immense importance that all those concerned in the multilateral coalition that is addressing itself to this should appreciate the need for immense sensitivity, for the avoidance of unduly rigid timetables or prescriptions in advance about the place, nature and size of forces and so on?
	Above all, we should try to proceed with a combination of patience and expedition—perhaps, in one old phrase, "with all deliberate speed", meaning with all cautious speed—in helping the different components in Iraq along the path which now lies ahead of them. May we be sure that the experience of this country, which one does not often invoke in circumstances of this kind, can be mobilised to ensure that decisions are not taken on the basis of any perhaps almost unconscious post-imperial ulterior motives in this situation of extreme sensitivity?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, for his message of sympathy. I am sure it will be greatly appreciated.
	The noble and learned Lord is quite right—we do use the phrase "Iraqi people" to describe a diverse people. We use the phrase "British people" to describe diverse people in this country, too, despite the fact that many of them hold different views and have hugely different backgrounds. I come back to what my right honourable friend said in the Statement that I have repeated to your Lordships. Yesterday was a moving demonstration that democracy and freedom are universal values to which people everywhere aspire.
	One of the matters that I have found most concerning and in some ways most depressing is the way that some of our commentators, in a rather condescending way, have presumed to decide that democracy is something that other people do not want, that it is somehow an exclusively western attribute to want democracy. What happened yesterday admirably demonstrated that that simply is not the case. Throughout Iraq the polls have shown that about 80 per cent of people wanted to vote. We do not, of course, yet know how many got to the polls.
	I agree with what the noble and learned Lord said about treating these issues with sensitivity and not arriving at prescriptions in advance. In some senses, we now have to change our mindset as well. The Iraqi people—if I may use the phrase again—will increasingly be speaking for themselves with greater and greater authority. It behoves us all to listen to that voice both on this side of the Atlantic and on the other side of the Atlantic as well.

Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister accept that the whole House feels great sympathy and regret at the loss of life due to the crash of the Hercules?
	Does my noble friend further accept that there is genuine relief and pleasure among all people of good will at the heart-warming results of the elections yesterday throughout Iraq? Does she agree—this bears repeating on record again and again—that no one could fail to be moved by seeing the emotion and delight of those very brave Iraqis who took their right to vote and refused to be intimidated by the threats from the men of violence? It cannot be repeated too often either that they deserve our great admiration. Also, the non-Iraqis who have been working in Iraq under tremendously difficult circumstances to help bring about the elections yesterday deserve our very deep gratitude.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I agree both with the point about sympathy for the families of those affected by the Hercules crash and with that about the relief and pleasure at the way in which the polls went yesterday.
	We should not for a moment forget that some Iraqis lost their lives yesterday. We do not yet know the exact figures—we hope to have a more accurate view shortly—but somewhere in the region of 30 Iraqis lost their lives trying to vote. It is a staggering figure when you consider the ease and security with which we vote—or choose not to vote—in this country. That is one of the real messages for many people which came out of yesterday.
	One does not have to have supported the military action in Iraq to acknowledge that yesterday was a great step forward for the Iraqi people. It provided the encouraging next step in the democratic process. I thank my noble friend for expressing that so clearly.

Lord Selkirk of Douglas: My Lords, I am an honorary Air Commodore. Does the Minister accept that the crews trained at Royal Air Force Lyneham are among the very best and most highly trained in the world? Our deepest sympathies go to the families and friends of all those involved. We very much hope that it will be possible in the hours, days and weeks ahead to establish the causes of this tragic episode.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I endorse everything that the noble Lord has said. I know how good those crews are. I have flown in Hercules aircraft myself in Iraq. I know the care that is taken and the skill, expertise and dedication of those who fly them. Of course everything needs to be done as quickly as possible to ensure that the families, in particular, know why their loved ones died. I know that my noble friend Lord Bach, who is in his place beside me, and his colleagues in the Ministry of Defence will do everything possible to obtain that information quickly.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, perhaps I may press my noble friend on the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. Will the British Government resist at every stage proposals from people within Iraq for the stationing of permanent military forces in either Iraq or separately in Kurdistan? Would not the stationing of troops in Kurdistan in particular raise all kinds of problems in the Middle East which people, particularly in Iraq, are not taking into account?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, my noble friend has reinforced the tricky question put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire—no doubt because it was a tricky question. We do have troops stationed permanently in some parts of the world, but I am not in a position to say what will be the outcome of any discussions with an eventual Iraqi Government who are backed by the full authority of the people's mandate in the elections at the end of the year.
	We have run very quickly into the pitfall that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, advised us against—that is, being too prescriptive at this stage about a future which we all acknowledge should be largely fashioned by the Government of Iraq on the basis of their mandate. We cannot believe that we have to listen to what the Iraqi people want, and have a relationship of give and take among allies with them, but at the same time say, "Here are our red lines", before we even start to consider the question of troops.
	Nothing I have said in answering my noble friend's question should in any way indicate that I think we will permanently have troops there. In answering a very difficult and delicate question at this Dispatch Box, I am not about to put Her Majesty's Government in a position which, for all I know, may be quite different from the circumstances prevailing in a year's time.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, as an opponent of the war in the first place, as the noble Baroness knows, I welcome the elections that occurred yesterday in Iraq and the election results. Indeed, the high turnout puts this country to shame. I hope that the 59 per cent turnout of voters in this country will be improved at the next election, perhaps reaching the Iraqi level.
	I would like to pursue the question that has already been raised by a number of your Lordships. What is the Government's attitude to the future of Iraq as a unified nation? Does the noble Baroness not agree that the great danger at the moment is that the country will split into three parts—the Kurdish north, the Sunni centre and the Shi'ite south, and that that would be a disaster for Iraq? Because of our history in Iraq, is it the Government's policy to prevent that split if they possibly can?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, if I may say so, the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, is a perfect example of the point I was making a moment or two ago. One does not have to have supported the military action in Iraq to support the fact that yesterday's elections appear to have gone off more smoothly than some anticipated might be the case.
	Let me be clear on the question of the future of the Iraqi position constitutionally. Her Majesty's Government support the territorial integrity of Iraq. The question of Iraq's future constitutional position is exactly the question which the transitional National Assembly will be considering over the next few months. It is exactly the question upon which the Iraqi people will have the opportunity to vote in their referendum. So questions about what the United Kingdom Government would do to prevent the break-up of the Iraqi people come back to the prescriptive point of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon. We support territorial integrity, but we recognise that this is an exercise in a new constitution which is an exercise for the Iraqis, supported as they will be, no doubt, with advice from many different quarters. But in the end, it is a question for them.

School Transport Bill

Second Reading debate resumed.

The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, we are grateful for the time which Ministers and officials of the Department for Education and Skills have given to discussing the Bill on school transport and its related prospectus with officers of the Church of England Board of Education, our colleagues from the Roman Catholic Church and others.
	We warmly welcome the general thrust of the Bill, with its concern for the environment, for the health of young people and for the efficient use of financial and natural resources. To encourage fresh thinking about these matters and to promote new arrangements for bringing children to and from school is surely right.
	We are particularly grateful for the content of the revised prospectus for the Bill and for the proposal that it should be placed on a statutory footing. We strongly support this development and welcome the clarity which it brings.
	We have been concerned that the Bill might inadvertently serve to worsen the provision of transport to denominational and other faith schools. We therefore welcome the statement in paragraph 10 of the prospectus that the schemes may,
	"improve provision for . . . pupils travelling to schools preferred on religious or philosophical grounds",
	and the related and more detailed treatment of this issue in paragraph 36. I should be grateful for an assurance from the Minister that it is the Government's intention that no weakening of faith school transport should transpire as a consequence of the Bill's enactment.
	We were anxious, too, that there should be wide consultation, including with relevant denominational authorities, about the content of local travel schemes. I note that the prospectus covers this fully in paragraph 14.
	We welcome, too, the references to those who, for philosophical reasons, do not wish their child to be educated in a school with an explicit Christian denominational or other faith-provider affiliation. That seems wholly proper.
	However, there is a reference in paragraph 36 of the prospectus to parents' "secular convictions". This allows me to make what I trust your Lordships will recognise as an important point. The Education and Skills Committee has been courteous enough to recognise that there are no secular maintained schools in England or Wales. I agree, and therefore resist the use of this terminology in the prospectus, with its implication that community schools could be regarded as "secular institutions" in any sense which would suggest that religion has no place within them. Daily acts of worship,
	"wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character"
	are required in them by law, as is religious education according to an agreed syllabus, in the drafting of which local faith groups are normally much involved.
	In both community schools and faith-provided schools, parents have the right to withdraw their child from both worship and religious education. That very few actually do so is a testimony to the sensitivity with which these vital areas in the life of all schools is treated. Access to the spiritual dimension of life is the right of every child within the limits of their parents' wishes. That must continue to be offered in all schools, not just denominational schools.
	Church of England schools proudly offer this aspect of education, but we do not wish to see clear parental preference in this matter being frustrated by the legislation. I am therefore particularly grateful for the assurances in paragraphs 29 and 30 of the prospectus in respect of low-income and multi-child families.
	In my diocese, we have a raft of over-subscribed Church schools in some of the most challenging parts of south London. I believe that they provide a wonderful springboard of opportunity, particularly for minority ethnic children.
	Nationally, 67 per cent of the 44 new Church of England secondary schools which have opened in recent years or are agreed to open are either in areas of high deprivation or are replacements for previous schools in major difficulties. It is especially important for us that Church of England schools should be open to all those who wish to have their child educated within them, not merely to those who can afford the bus fare or are happy to bring out the family car.
	I am glad to support the Bill which I trust will, if anything, serve to enhance the commitment of the Church of England to providing quality education in partnership with local education authorities, with an especial eye towards the disadvantaged within our communities, a proper care for the environment and the development of children who are healthy in mind, body and soul.

Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I very much welcome the Bill. I think it is well past the time for a review of school transport. As my noble friend Lord Filkin said, the three-mile limit for free transport is much too rigid—if you live 10 yards outside it, you get free transport, but if you live 10 yards inside it, you do not. How many children these days walk three miles? Three hundred yards is difficult for some of them.
	I do not see this as a country/urban debate, as the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, tried to argue. It needs to be looked at in the countryside and in the towns all over the country. It is time to experiment, and the review gives local authorities the opportunity to come up with some very flexible and creative ideas.
	I certainly believe that the needs of disabled and special needs children should be looked at very carefully. I have several friends in that category, and declare an interest in that my wife is the chair of governors of a special needs school. Special needs transport is often more expensive because the children often have to go further and extra staff are sometimes needed on board.
	An awful lot of children who are covered in the Bill do not fall into those categories. Those on income support, for example, also need to be taken care of. But, for the vast majority of others in the system, there needs to be a shake-up.
	We have all seen the traffic jams outside schools at dropping-off and picking-up times. My noble friend Lord Filkin said that the number of kids coming to school by car has doubled, but from what I have seen, it has probably trebled or quadrupled. Cars have become bigger, glossier and higher, which is great for the children who are protected like cocoons inside the car, but very dangerous for the children who happen to be walking outside. They also contribute to the fear of some parents about allowing their children to walk. They cannot cross the road because there are too many 4x4s bearing down on them. That is wrong, and it contributes to obesity and other problems.
	I do not see why people in the categories that have not been mentioned should not contribute to the cost of getting their children to school. Some of them already go by bus. I was interested to hear, according to the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, that the Conservative Party opposed the idea. I always thought that that party liked to see money being saved and targeted where it was most needed. Frankly, people driving their kids half a mile in 4x4s are not suitable recipients of state aid.
	I am pleased that the LGA supports the Bill in principle, and for saying that flexibility for local authorities to decide what is best for them is important. However, the LGA is concerned that the Bill,
	"does not include the substantive measures for improving the regulation of mainstream bus services".
	We often debate bus services in your Lordships' House. There seems to be congenital opposition from my friends in government to any kind of changes to the regulation of buses outside London. I do not know whether that has anything to do with the number of people in your Lordships' House or in the other place who use bus services. They certainly do not use school buses. There is an argument for a little bit more regulation of buses because more people would use them, which is one of the objectives of the Bill. But that is a bit of a side line.
	It is clear that any scheme must be fair, equitable and sustainable, and must encourage road safety. As my noble friend said, it must encourage cycling and walking. It must encourage more school kids to go by bus, and it must also encourage less use of cars. The Bill wants to achieve all those aims.
	Clearly, some experiments will be successful, and some will be less so, but it is right to experiment. There is a real danger that some parents will choose not to take up the schemes and that more parents will try to drive their children to school in even more cars. It is dangerous outside some schools, and it actively discourages walking and cycling. The more cars there are outside schools—they are often double or triple-banked on the zigzag lines where they are not supposed to stop at all—the more pollution is created.
	Some driving to school is necessary—even in 4x4s, especially if they come from outlying parts of the country where the roads are bad or subject to a lot of snow and ice. But in Chelsea, Hampstead or Oxford it is a different matter.
	As part of the package it would be good to see an option to charge people for bringing their children to school by car, say within a mile, or maybe half a mile of the school gates. There are good reasons for doing that. It would dissuade people from using their cars, and it would balance the costs that they might have to pay for using the buses or whatever scheme the local authority comes up with against the cost of bringing their horrible cars within half a mile of the school. It would reduce pollution around schools, which can be quite high, and it would reduce accidents. Those are all desirable objectives.
	How can it be done? I believe that if such a scheme is to work, all parents or guardians will have to tell the school how they intend their children to travel to school. If it is by bus, they will be charged; if by some other means, they may not. There is no reason why they should not say what kind of car they will use. The charge for using a car should be steeply graded, depending on two things.
	First, the danger to people outside the car must be considered. There is an excellent means of measuring that, called Euro NCAP, which gives all cars that one can buy in this country star ratings for safety both inside and outside the car. Most 4x4s receive excellent stars for inside the car but just about zero for outside because they are higher and bigger. The second criterion would be the pollution that they cause. The bigger the vehicle and engine, the more exhaust fumes they push out.
	That idea would make the schemes more attractive, and would discourage people from driving their children to school. If they have to do it, for whatever reason, they could drop them off half a mile away to give them a bit of exercise and maybe help them to lose a bit of weight. I shall table some amendments in Committee and discuss the issue further then.

Lord Rix: My Lords, I support the broad principles behind the Bill for the reasons that the Minister outlined with his usual eloquence and clarity. He made no direct mention of disabled children and those with special educational needs.
	However, the noble Lords, Lord Hanningfield and Lord Berkeley, produced trailers of their concerns, while the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, presented a fully-blown scenario which said pretty well everything that I wished to say as joint chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Learning Disability, as president of Mencap and as the grandfather of a lovely lad with Down's Syndrome who very soon will be entering mainstream schooling. I was particularly delighted that the noble Baroness stressed the needs of children with disabilities who are over the age of 16.
	I readily admit that there is a demand for flexible and innovative approaches to the provision of school transport, but I find it difficult formally to welcome a Bill that will remove the right to free school transport for many thousands of non-disabled and disabled children.
	I shall concentrate my comments today on the need for families with disabled children and children with special educational needs to be treated fairly because I am concerned that their rights may be under even more threat than those of other children.
	With that in mind I ask the Minister to set disability campaigners' minds at rest at the earliest opportunity by making it clear that nothing in the Bill will exacerbate the already very difficult situation that parents of disabled children and children with SEN have in accessing appropriate school transport for their sons and daughters.
	Many disabled children, or children with SEN travel long distances to access appropriate education because their local mainstream school is unable to meet their needs. It is important that those children are not additionally penalised for the lack of provision locally.
	Similarly, many children with disabilities will go to a school within the statutory walking distance but will still require additional assistance to get to school safely. They, too, must not be penalised and the assistance must be provided.
	One of the ways in which the Minister could reassure parents and children is to have a cast-iron guarantee on the face of the Bill that when disabled children or children with SEN are provided with transport to enable them to get to school that is additional to, or different from, that provided for non-disabled children, they will not incur any extra charges.
	While we are on the subject of charging, I feel that the Bill must make it clear that DLA mobility allowance is not to be used to fund school transport provision. I would welcome assurances from the Minister that that will also be spelt out in the Bill.
	The Special Educational Consortium, of which Mencap is a member, has informed me that much work has been done in another place on improving the prospectus for school travel schemes. In particular, it, and I, welcome the fact that there is now a firm commitment to ensuring drivers and escorts of children with SEN or a disability receive appropriate disability awareness training as well as being checked by the Criminal Records Bureau. This really must be an absolute minimum to ensure the safety of disabled children and I applaud the Government for taking this stance.
	I also welcome the fact that the Government have accepted the principle of consulting families in, I hope, an accessible way but, again, the Special Educational Consortium would like to see that duty on the face of the Bill rather than simply in the prospectus.
	Similarly, a duty to report on how well school travel schemes have provided for disabled children and children with SEN should also be clearly on the face of the Bill although I accept that the detail of how this would work in practice could then be put in the prospectus.
	As I said at the outset, this is a Bill which neither I nor many in the special educational needs sector particularly welcome. It complicates an already difficult situation for families who are often struggling to make sure their child has a decent education—or indeed an education at all.
	Under these circumstances it is absolutely vital that this Bill does not make things markedly worse. The changes I am suggesting today will go some way to alleviating the concerns of parents of disabled children and the children themselves. They are worried and they need our reassurances.
	I have absolutely no doubt that the Government have the best of intentions for this Bill and therefore I am extremely hopeful that the spirit in which the Department for Education and Skills has approached discussions with stakeholders so far will continue. I look forward to hearing what the Minister says in his summing-up and, similarly, look forward to discussing these issues further as the Bill makes its way through your Lordships' House.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I welcome this Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said, it is a narrow measure but I believe that it has the opportunity to impact in a very positive way on the quality of life of possibly millions of schoolchildren and their parents.
	It is remarkable that the current system has remained unchanged for 60 years. I am surprised that noble Lords opposite are so wedded to the current arrangements. I cannot believe that anyone who has been a local councillor for a number of years or, indeed, has served in the other place, has not had an inquiry from two households close to one another in the same street where one household's children are getting free school transport but the other is not. We should not adhere to that crude cut-off arrangement any longer.
	I should at this stage declare my interest as a member of a unitary authority that has LEA responsibilities and as a school governor for several local schools. I draw on that experience in saying why I welcome the measure that is before us. Luton is a compact, urban area but we suffer greatly from the school run. We suffer from disruption and congestion. The roads get clogged. There is indiscriminate parking compromising safety around many schools. You do not need a timetable in Luton to know when the schools are sitting; you simply look out of the window at the traffic flows. This will all get worse if we do not look to change things as increasing affluence will result in more people having access to private cars and being more inclined to use them.
	I did not follow the point of the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, when he said that on the one hand local authorities were not going to express an interest in the measure as they would be blamed for charging fees, but on the other that this was some ghastly plot by government to switch resources from rural to urban areas. I hope that my local authority—I no longer have responsibility for leading it—will express an interest in the measure. I know that it is the officers' view that we should. As in most urban areas, children go to their local primary school and they mostly get there by walking with their parents. Obviously, journeys to high schools are longer as there are fewer of them, and journeys to the sixth form colleges and the FE college are even longer.
	A concern has been raised with me on which I hope that my noble friend the Minister can give assurance. If a key criterion of the pilots regarding who will be able to participate favours those who can most effect modal shift, will my noble friend assure me that those urban authorities where there is less ability to do that, given the primary school aspect, will not be disadvantaged?
	The opportunity for local schemes to be developed is particularly apt given the changing nature of provision. Certainly the old pattern of young people attending secondary school at one location for five years, possibly visiting an off-site location for the occasional sports activity such as swimming, but more or less attending the same facility throughout their school life will change. I draw on local examples to demonstrate that. My authority is part of the Government's Excellence in Cities initiative. A state-of-the-art e-learning centre is attached to one school but is a facility used by all of the schools. Although part of it can be enjoyed by virtual access it cannot be enjoyed to the fullest extent without having access to proper and planned transport arrangements.
	The development of vocational provision within the curriculum—I refer to John Tomlinson in this regard—will challenge the model of attendance at one site throughout the 11 to 16 phase. Locally, the LEA is developing the concept of a consortium of high schools to help deliver that with each school in the consortium providing a different component of the curriculum. If that is to work successfully, appropriate travel arrangements will need to be made. Other suggested models for vocational development include the creation of separate vocational centres that youngsters will attend for part of their schooling. If that is to work, there will have to be new ways of organising travel and transport arrangements.
	The 14 to 19 agenda will anyway drive more and better co-operation and interactions between FE colleges and sixth form colleges and schools, all with implications for access and transport. The development of specialist schools and Building Schools for the Future—exciting programmes—will all have similar implications.
	Like most, if not all LEAs, we have denominational schools. However, there is only one secondary Roman Catholic school in Luton. It is quite possible that there will be an increase in denominational schools. There is a desire among the Muslim community to develop faith schools. That would give rise to increased journeys across town.
	The LEA underwent a thematic Ofsted inspection a couple of years ago. I believe it was a pilot arrangement and that it was never repeated. It considered how the LEA impacted on community cohesion. One feature of current provision for us is a degree of polarisation in the ethnic composition of schools. An emerging recommendation from the review was to seek to make each school more representative of the ethnic composition of the local community as a whole. It was pointed out that that cut across issues of parental choice and therefore a different approach was needed to develop emerging strategies to encourage more interactions between young people from different ethnic groups, for example, through sport, the arts and the use of specialist colleges. All of that has implications for new and changing transport patterns within the area.
	A scrutiny committee of the council looked at lifelong learning and analysed attainment and the factors that made a difference and enhanced attainment within schools. As we all know, a whole range of things impact on that. The overall conclusion was that schools and LEAs needed to do a number of things consistently and better and that there was not just one nugget which made a difference. One of the issues that cropped up was that of having banded admissions to schools. We did not take that very far. You would have to be politically brave to do that, although I believe that model existed and perhaps still does in London. If something like that had a real impact on attainment, and if it was to be progressed, there are significant implications for transport across an area.
	I support this Bill because it could be a catalyst for other developments. It is certainly an opportunity to do what some councils have already done, which is to integrate social services and educational passenger transport. As an authority that claimed it was greatly joined-up, it was an interesting experience to try to get people out of their silos to do it, but it has been done locally with some benefits. It meant looking not only at school hours and consultation on how they could be staggered to make better use of transport, but also at when day centres, family centres and community centres are open.
	Another opportunity for local councils arising from this Bill is the chance to take a more strategic view on commissioning of passenger transport. We understood when we did our analysis that there was a lack of capacity in the market, and the way we went about trying to commission transport was impacted by that. Putting extra capacity in the market will not help that in the short term, but it will give greater reassurance to the market and possibly enable councils to develop direct provision of transport as part of these arrangements.
	For a variety of reasons, particularly what is happening to education and the increasing joined-up partnership working entailed by that, this Bill is long overdue. It can bring significant benefits, and I hope that it will have speedy passage through this House.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Walmsley made clear, we on these Benches welcome many aspects of this Bill. As the Minister stated in presenting the Bill to the House, the main objectives are to get more children walking and cycling; to limit the number of private cars on the school run; to encourage local education authorities to introduce novel and attractive alternatives and to encourage more children and parents to use communal rather than private transport.
	So what is objectionable about it? All of us experience the relief during the school holidays that was noted by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. We learn from the statistics that one in five—20 per cent—of cars at the height of the rush hour are taking children to school. We know that these numbers have doubled in the past 20 years, and that the knock-on effect on traffic congestion, pollution, safety for pedestrians, safety for children and cyclists is bad. We also know that the figures for obesity in school children have increased alarmingly, and the reason is not just their diet but because they are not getting the exercise that they used to get.
	Is it not therefore sensible that we come up with some better way of spending the £600 million spent on school transport every year? Yes, it is, but—this is where one begins to look at the downside of this Bill—the Bill raises a real problem. The fundamental problem is that it breaches a principle that has been with us for 60 years. Schooling between the ages of five and 16 is compulsory, and where schooling is compulsory if a child lives too far away from the school to reach it easily by foot—for a child over the age of eight at three miles and under eight at two miles—to enable them to enjoy free schooling during compulsory ages they should be provided with transport to school.
	This Bill proposes that the principle of free transport if it is not easy to get to school, is to be breached and that local education authorities may charge for taking children to school. It is made clear in the Explanatory Notes that such charging will not be made for those who are very poor. Paragraph 4 of the schedule requires the scheme to set out a charging policy. The Explanatory Notes says:
	"No charge may be made under the scheme for travel arrangements for children from low-income families, unless the child has been given an opportunity to attend a suitable school closer to his home but chooses to attend one further afield".
	I will come back to that issue later.
	Essentially, it extends the concept of means-testing to school transport, and says that if a family can afford to pay it is reasonable that they should pay. If a child is eligible for free school meals, roughly speaking that means that you are earning £13,000 to £14,000 and have a couple of kids. Otherwise, how much will be charged? A number of figures have been quoted, and it looks as though there could well be a return charge of £1 per day per child on the school bus. Two children travelling on the school bus will cost £10 per week. That is not much if you earn £35,000 or £40,000 a year, but a lot if you are earning £15,000 a year and if your budget is already tight. This is the fundamental difficulty with the Bill. The right reverend Prelate welcomed the Bill, and he quoted paragraph 10 of the school travel schemes prospectus, which states:
	"All schemes must aim to cut car use on the home to school journey. Beyond that, they must focus on local priorities and may improve provision for one or more of: pupils travelling to schools preferred on religious or philosophical grounds".
	Yes, but he did not mention that they might have to pay for that privilege. This is a fairly fundamental breach of a principle that has been with us for 60 years. It is always the same. Here we have a proposal to change, and there are many sensible reasons why we should change, but inevitably there will be some gainers and some losers. Overall, will we have more gainers or losers?
	The advantage of the Government proposals is that they are saying, "Okay, but it is only pilot schemes. What we are suggesting is that local authorities have the right to run a pilot, and we can see how it works out". This in itself is attractive, because it enables us to see whether it works. Does it work? Will it cut car use? The great danger is that once you start charging £5 per week, or £10 if you have a couple of kids, parents will say, "Oh, I am not going to pay that", and bundle the children into a car rather than send them by bus. The danger is that those who currently travel by bus, who live three miles away and get that bus for free, will come by car in future. We do not know how people will react; it will depend on the style of the pilot. that is an advantage of running pilots, but it may backfire.
	Why do we need legislation to run pilots? The Bill is putting the cart before the horse. Normally, you run a pilot and if it is sensible you pass legislation. Here, we are passing legislation to run pilots. Do we need it? The experiment is interesting, but normally we do not need to have legislation to run pilots.
	That brings me to my next question. The Minister made it very clear that no local authority would be forced to follow the principles. You can run a pilot, and have a variation in pilots. There may be some backing away from pilots because they do not seem sensible. Over time, we will undoubtedly see what seem to be the most successful schemes. However, from what the Minister said and from the Bill, it would appear that there is no obligation on any local authority to move down this route. That is fine. Does it mean that some local authorities can maintain their present arrangements ad infinitum? Do they never have to change, or is the idea that there will be further legislation down the road, in order that what appears to be best practice from the pilots is carried out nationally?
	My impression is that the local authorities that have embraced the ideas with alacrity are very much those such as Luton, for which the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, spoke. The same is true of the local authority that I represent, Surrey. We had representatives from West Sussex talking to us the other day. Those are all local authorities with a substantial spread of suburbia, where the school run is a very big issue and so they are trying to come up with some innovative ideas to cope with it. The school run here is less than three miles most of the time. We know that the average journey is about two miles. The authorities that are confronted by huge problems as a result are those with substantial rural areas, such as Northumbria, Cumbria and Cornwall. There, children go considerable distances even to their nearest primary school.
	There also arises the question of what the Government's objectives are. We are told very firmly that they want to get children to go to the nearest school, to which they can walk or cycle. However, we also had the Government's five-year strategy published last summer, which makes it clear that they are anxious to encourage parents to choose from a diversity of schools and not necessarily for children to go to the school nearest home. That was picked up by the Select Committee in its examination of the Bill when it was in draft form. The committee concluded:
	"The Government seems confused as to the objectives of its draft Bill. The Secretary of State has said that it will encourage more children to walk or cycle to their local school, yet this does not sit easily with Government policies to increase diversity in schools and to allow for the expression of parental preference; an approach that encourages greater mobility",
	and variation in choice of schools. A rather splendid paragraph in the Explanatory Notes states:
	"No charge may be made under the scheme for travel arrangements for children from low income families, unless the child has been given an opportunity to attend a suitable school closer to his home but chooses to attend one further afield".
	That is choice for those who can afford it, but very little choice for those who cannot.
	One comes to the conclusion that there are problems with the Bill. It is difficult to know what its true objective may be. David Hart, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, says that the Bill,
	"will cause uproar amongst parents. They will ask whether this is the beginning of an attack on free education. It will be deeply unpopular and could be extremely expensive for those with several children".
	One sometimes wonders what the purposes of modernisation are. Perhaps the Bill is yet another move towards modernisation that is actually a fairly fundamental attack on the principles of the welfare state. In this case, the principle is free public education. I finish by quoting John Dunford, the general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, who said:
	"This moves away from the principle of free education for all".

Baroness Morris of Bolton: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important and significant debate. The Bill extends beyond the mere transportation of pupils to and from school. It directly affects policy on diversity, choice and equal access to education for pupils, whether they live in town or country, and whether or not they live with a disability.
	We have heard a number of powerful and enlightening speeches today. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, voiced major concerns about schemes affecting SEN children and counselled against eroding their rights; we agree. The right reverend Prelate argued passionately that faith schools should be available not only to those who could afford the bus fare or bring out the family car; as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, said, they may have to pay on the bus. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said that the Bill was about getting cars off the road. We agree, but think that it might put more cars on the road. I say the same to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton. The noble Lord, Lord Rix, spoke eloquently about the difficulties facing parents and pupils in accessing transport; again, we entirely agree.
	Make no mistake—this may be a small Bill, but it is an important Bill, with what will be the first changes to school transport legislation in more than 60 years. Yet—my noble friend Lord Hanningfield made the case—we on these Benches do not believe that the Bill we have before us is the best way forward. We can all support the need to reduce car use on the home-to-school journey, particularly where that leads to undue traffic congestion. However, we believe the measures in the Bill will be counterproductive and effectively contradict existing government policy.
	Does the Minister agree that giving LEAs the power to start to charge parents for discretionary school transport schemes which are currently free will lead to parents switching from bus to car, therefore defeating the stated aim of reducing congestion? Furthermore, is he concerned that any attempt compulsorily to stagger school start times will fall foul of the Government's extended school and childcare policies?
	I would like to touch briefly on a number of specific areas of concern that we have with the Bill. At present, it takes no consideration of the special transport needs of disabled pupils. That is of particular concern, given that the vast majority of pupils with some form of disability do not possess a statement and will therefore be included in the Bill's provisions. We believe that those children and their families will be penalised unfairly by incurring additional costs as a consequence of their disability. That is an important area. A lack of appropriate school transport can be a barrier to a child with disabilities accessing proper education. Children with SEN cannot always get the best education that they need at their local school. We simply must not add any further stress to those children or financial burden to their families.
	We are also concerned about the impact that the Bill will have on pupils in rural areas. Indeed, we cannot help but think that this is yet another piece of legislation that will unfairly penalise those living in our villages and rural towns. The vast majority of pupils who live in rural areas and currently receive free transport would be expected to pay if the changes were brought in. The impact will be hardest on those living in areas where greater distances have to be covered to get to school. In short, it will effectively be another tax on living in the countryside. In rural areas there is often insufficient public transport and in all areas it may not be arranged to suit the needs of young people on the way to and from school or college. Furthermore, public transport in rural areas is rarely flexible enough, reliable or cheap enough to make sure that children and young people can use this as a way of returning home if they want to stay on for after-school activities.
	In addition the Bill appears to be at odds with the Government's stated aims of achieving greater parental diversity and choice in education. I am sure that the Minister will have studied in great detail the report by the Education Select Committee, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, referred, about the draft version of the Bill. He will, therefore, be aware that the committee concluded that the Government appeared to be confused as to the Bill's objectives. Indeed, when the then Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, gave evidence before the committee, he stated that the Bill's main aim was,
	"the encouragement of people to go to their local neighbourhood school and, therefore, to travel less".
	The noble Lord, Lord Filkin, stated in his opening speech that people would receive free transport where they attend the nearest school. However, the committee's report stated that Charles Clarke's interpretation,
	"seems directly to conflict with Government policies on diversity of schools and parental preference, which increase mobility".
	The committee added that the Bill gave children from poorer families no legal entitlement to free transport to any school other than their nearest and concluded:
	"It is therefore hard to see how the Bill will extend parental choice to low-income families".
	Under the Bill, the costs of travelling to and from school would become prohibitive for many families in urban and rural areas. Such costs may become a very significant factor in school choice, so that children whose families cannot afford to pay for travel will have to attend the school nearest to where they live, putting them at a further disadvantage, compared to their more affluent contemporaries. Could the Minister comment on whether he agrees with the Select Committee's interpretation and, if so, how he would justify to poorer parents restricting the choice of schools available to their children?
	A further key weakness identified by the committee was the criteria on which fares would be set. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, also said, in the pilot areas, fares would be means-tested, on the basis of child's entitlement to free school meals. Does the Minister agree that if a means test based on free school meals is used, many who cannot afford to pay will be ineligible, simply because they do not choose, for whatever reason, to apply for free school meals? The committee said that a more "sophisticated" indicator should be used. Perhaps the Minister, himself a veritable model of sophistication, could tell us exactly which criteria will be used.
	I wish also to pose some further questions. If a local education authority wishes to introduce a travel scheme for part of its area, will it thus be able to charge parents in one part of the LEA but not in another? Does not the power for an LEA completely or partially to reimburse travel expenses offer an opportunity to discriminate between parents? A low-income family will lose its right to free travel if it chooses to attend a school further afield. By what criteria will the judgment be made that the family was offered a suitable school closer to home? What happens if the family correctly believes that the school is not suitable? What is the definition of "suitable"? Furthermore, the Bill allows for the new provisions and trials to be discontinued if they are unsuccessful. However, what will be the success criteria and over which time frame will they be judged?
	In conclusion, we believe that the Bill misses a clear opportunity to take more cars off the road while failing to provide for affordable, safe and well supervised transport to and from school. Rather than reducing the right to free school transport, the Government should give more pupils the right to use it and investing in purpose-built buses. That is the real route to reducing car use. The effective abolition of free buses for those living two to three miles from school will increase, not reduce, car use. Charging for home-to-school travel will also tend to increase car travel and will particularly disadvantage many pupils, especially those with some form of disability or special educational needs. It will also reduce school choice and unfairly penalise those pupils and parents living in rural areas.
	This is not a school transport Bill; for many it will be a withdrawal of free school transport Bill and we on these Benches cannot give it our support.

Lord Filkin: My Lords, more in sorrow than in anger, I shall respond to some of the issues raised. I am grateful to noble Lords who have, I suppose, set out so clearly some of their interests and concerns. I am particularly grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, who took a thoughtful and reasoned stance which he thought it important to mark. But he had the grace, as you would expect, to recognise that the status quo was pretty indefensible. We are not describing a good situation and that is where I have been—shocked would be too strong a word—very surprised indeed by the tone of some of the debate.
	The status quo is not good. It is not fair. It does not address the problems. If we as a government sought to introduce a crude measure of subsidy by saying that those who lived a certain distance away from a school would be subsidised in full and those who lived a shorter distance away received none, irrespective of any other issues, we would be rightly laughed out of the House. Yet, some Benches argue that the current situation is fine and, therefore, any movement away from that is wrong. I find that hard to understand.
	The second question is whether there should be some experimentation. In the present complex situation, it is self-evident to most people that there should be some experimentation. Arguably, the worst action that any central government could take would be to bring in national regulations which tried to capture the great diversity of needs, problems and priorities in transport, and the wealth and need inequalities in our society. That would be madness and the Bill's stance is that central government do not know the answers to all of that. It is right that local people, local communities and local democracy should be better placed than central government. It is fundamentally right that we should proceed by pilots. I have heard scant acknowledgement of that stance from either Opposition Bench. I am surprised by that, because we could not sensibly specify a better system from the centre.
	It is also a strange stance, given that the measures seek to affirm that local people, through local democracy and local government—who will be pretty well conditioned by their own electoral sensitivities not to do the sort of stupid things that have been suggested in some of the speeches we have heard—should carry the responsibility of trying better to shape schemes, because they will pay the price locally if they do so. Also, the scheme is voluntary, so no one will charge when that might have the sort of consequences that the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, pretended would flow. No local authority in its right mind would behave in the way that she suggested they would under the Bill. Local authorities have too much common sense.
	If the House seeks to constrain the Bill by raising straw men and by raising phantoms and terrors, and to put on the face of the Bill so many limitations and protections, that will strangle the measure, so that it will not be able to do the job that is needed—to promote some innovation and to find better solutions to real problems that ordinary people face day by day in getting their children to school without causing worse congestion, without worsening health inequalities and, above all, without addressing some of the serious iniquities in a system which currently, I repeat, subsidises the well-off much more than it subsidises the poor. So I am surprised that those Benches are not standing four-square with me in saying that this situation is indefensible morally and that we have to find a better way forward. That does not mean that we do not have to address the detail of some serious issues. That is what we are all here for and we shall enjoy many happy hours and days in Committee doing just that.
	I shall have a go at responding to some of the points raised but I shall not be able to answer all of them. That will come as no surprise to noble Lords because a string of points have been put forward, but I shall do my best to respond to them relatively rapidly with the aid of my good officials. I spoke for only seven minutes in opening the debate but I do not think that I should add the other 13 minutes on to my closing speech because that would add up to 33 minutes and might be too much. But I shall have a go at answering some of the main points.
	The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, suggested that the Bill was redirecting resources from rural to urban areas, but there is nothing in the Bill that says that. The noble Lord knows as well as I do that effectively sparsity is one of the factors that drives grant to local authorities. There is no intention of taking any of that grant away from one local authority and giving it to another, and therefore no change is proposed in that respect. I think that the noble Lord was basically trying to say that no one is interested and so we do not need to take action.
	I may have answered the noble Lord rather literally on the question of how many formal inquiries there have been from local authorities. There have been no formal invitations so far but there have been about 50 expressions of interest. One does not want local authorities taken out and shot at this point. Perhaps particularly at this moment in the electoral cycle, none of them is going to say that it is going to go forward. We have to get a Bill in place and give local authorities the opportunity to reflect on it, and we do not intend to rush them into making their views known prematurely. But we know that there is sufficient interest in this matter because local government itself has asked us to act in this regard. The Local Government Association came forward and said, "Please give us better tools to address this issue".
	It may be argued that this matter can be solved only by throwing more money at it, but that is the easiest form of politics, as we all know. If that is the stance of the two other parties, they should stand up and say so. But both parties have recently made very public pronouncements that they intend to cut public expenditure substantially. One has mentioned a figure of £5 billion, and I cannot reflect the figures relating to the Official Opposition because they are so enormous. But both parties have taken a stance on reducing expenditure, so do not let us pretend that that is the way forward. One has to find ways of achieving better outcomes within existing expenditure. That is what responsible policies and politics are about.
	In response to the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, who said that the charges are unfair, I say that the current system is unfair. If a poor family lives two and a half miles from school and has three children, it is probably spending £7 per child per week on sending them to school. It is not receiving a bean of subsidy. So do not let us pretend that, if we move away at all from the status quo, that will be the end of the problem. In terms of policy, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said, one has to look at both winners and losers. But we would also be wrong if we took the view that the Bill was essentially a zero-sum game. I have used that expression in responding to the noble Baroness on previous occasions. If things are going well, it is possible that, in aggregate, there will be more gains than losses. It is not automatically a case that one will lose and another will gain.
	Choice for parents is an important issue. A number of noble Lords have referred to it and we shall have to return to the matter. It is the intersect between our stance and that of the Opposition Benches, who I think are equally supportive of parental choice within the system. At this point, I shall say only that there is no compulsory transport except to the nearest suitable school. Therefore, the existing system does not necessarily protect everyone, and I say that as a caution in respect of the Bill.
	We shall tend to have a debate which says, "Let's not start from where we are now. Let's go much further than we are now and, before we do anything, put local authorities into the position of expecting to protect everyone who is not currently protected". If we try to do that, we shall, by devious means, completely wreck the Bill. You cannot, at the same time, protect everyone more than they are currently being protected and give scope for innovation locally. That is obviously impossible.
	I agree that there is an enormous issue to be considered in relation to special educational needs. I am grateful for the courtesy of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, as I would have expected, in acknowledging that there has been much discussion with the Special Educational Consortium. He has put down some good markers. I carry special educational needs as my real day job, as opposed to working in this House in the evenings, and therefore I shall be particularly keen to engage with those issues. But, again, let us not pretend that everyone with special educational needs is currently receiving, or should be receiving, subsidy. They should not. There could be plenty of people with special educational needs. For example, a child in a well-off family may have a reading difficulty. That family will not need a subsidy and we should not pretend that it will; nor did the noble Lord, Lord Rix, argue that.
	It was stated that more cars will be on the roads as a result of the Bill. The prospectus states that local education authorities will have to demonstrate to our satisfaction that that will not be the case. It is obviously an issue of displacement—that is, whether the new provision was not sufficiently attractive and it was easier to get into a 4x4. We shall not go down that route and we have said that in the prospectus. We have made it clear that if we are not convinced of the desired effect, we shall not approve schemes, and so some protection is built into the scheme.
	On rural issues, current school transport arrangements cater only for a small minority of pupils. Only about one in 10 pupils in England and Wales receives any form of free transport. I have already given the example of 2.9 miles, and I may return to that later in responding to one or two other points.
	As would be expected as part of open government, we shall make public the evaluation of the schemes. Individual schemes have already been made public within local authorities. If people asked us for a copy, apart from indicating where they could obtain one, I think we would hardly be churlish about that. We want an open debate about these issues and, as a consequence, there is no need or case for secrecy.
	With regard to the Disability Discrimination Act, of course the Act must be complied with. I agree that it is not simply an issue of protecting statements; it goes wider than that.
	Annual reports will be made available and published on the website. We have already made it very clear that we expect any charges collected through school travel schemes to be reinvested in improved school arrangements for pupils. I suggest that noble Lords have a look at the relevant paragraph in the prospectus. It is as near a commitment as one can get to saying to local authorities, "This isn't a matter of taking money away; it is about using that money more intelligently with policy innovation to benefit more pupils and to benefit more those pupils and parents who most need it".
	The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked a question about the prospectus which touched on religious issues—a point also addressed by the right reverend Prelate. The status quo is that there is currently no guaranteed protection or subsidy. Indeed, the Churches are fearful that some LEAs are progressively withdrawing subsidies to children who choose to go to schools with a religious foundation. We share that concern, and the prospectus is written to give as strong a steer as possible in that regard without turning it into a set of national regulations.
	I am not doing full justice to the issue of SEN but I hope that noble Lords will bear with me in the limited time available. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, mentioned consultation with children. I thought that that was a good point and we shall reflect on it because, if we have not captured it, we shall need to do so. Therefore, we shall return to the matter.
	The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark was also right that the Government have no intention of weakening faith in schools. Clearly we have to do a little work on the prospectus to capture more accurately the current truth that mainstream schools have a significant component of religion in their curricula and in their practice. That is right and proper. We have not captured the reality of the current situation, but I assure the right reverend Prelate that we shall do so in our next draft.
	The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, tempted me to go down a very large cul-de-sac by suggesting that we would include in the Bill measures to attract 4x4s. However, I think that he was probably being more specific and focusing on what are called "Chelsea tractors". We are not going anywhere near that. I hope that he does not test me by tabling amendments at subsequent stages. He may have views on the matter, but I cannot see how this would be a realistic issue even to be considered in this Bill. The Government have no such intentions elsewhere. I am sorry to disappoint him, but I welcome his intelligent recognition that the current situation is not healthy and that we need to do something about it.
	I have already signalled that I look forward to further discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Rix, and with the Special Educational Needs Consortium. My right honourable friend Stephen Twigg undertook to look carefully at the position of children with SEN when he was concluding on the Bill in another place.
	I thought that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, made a very thoughtful speech about the need to make modal shifts and to have sensible experimentation, which was informed by perspectives from the centre and an understanding of what happens in a locality; that is, Luton. I welcome his thoughtfulness. He referred to Tomlinson and paragraph 10 of the prospectus notes that providing support for wider access for the 14 to 19 age group is a priority for our schemes.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said that many aspects of the Bill are to be welcomed, so I must not do her too much injustice. I acknowledge that. However, I could not follow her argument that the Bill breaches something fundamental in education in our society. We do not currently give every child free food or clothes to go to school. We have sophisticated systems to identify when a child needs financial help for clothing or food so that it is not deprived of education, so why should we think that the only way to deal with transport is to say that any child who lives more than three miles from its school should have total subsidy and any child who lives less than three miles from its school should have no subsidy? I cannot get my head around why the Bill is an attack on the fundamental principles of education. With the greatest respect, I do not think that the argument stacks up.
	I was asked why we need legislation. I can speak from the heart and say that I wish we did not need it, because then I would not have to be here. But we need it because Section 509 of the Education Act 1989 is prescriptive on all local authorities. We have to liberate local authorities to experiment.
	Transport is not just a rural problem. It is an urban and a rural problem, but the nature of the problem differs according to the locality. That is why it would be foolish for central government to deal with it. We would get it wrong.
	I am wearying the House, so I shall try to come to a conclusion. Denominational transport is currently discretionary, as I signalled previously. We are not moving from a current Valhalla to some form of Hades. Currently, practice is very diverse.
	Large families are an important issue because of the potential concentration of children. The last thing that we want is to stimulate large families to think that the alternative way to get their children to school is to get in the car. We are sharply aware of that.
	In rural areas, no more than 25 per cent, and usually less, of pupils are eligible for school transport. An enormous number of pupils in rural areas will be travelling from far away. Others will be close to the school.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, asked her usual terrifying list of 17 questions. I shall not do them justice from the Dispatch Box, for the usual reasons, but I shall respond to them. The Bill does not propose compulsion on schools or local authorities in order to force a shift of school opening hours, which I think she suggested. Governors control start times and we have no intention of changing that, but discussions about how changing opening hours might contribute are part of what thoughtful local authorities are considering.
	For information on extra costs, noble Lords should read paragraph 32 of the prospectus. We have previously touched on choice, although we shall come back to it. Reference was made to Charles Clarke and his support for this measure. He believes profoundly in this measure because he feels that local authorities are well placed to address it, and because he can see that intellectually it is not defensible to stay where we are at present.
	There has to be an intelligent process of change. I do not believe that the Government are confused about what we are trying to do. I hope that in my opening I set out very clearly, if briefly, what the objectives of the scheme are. I know that it is difficult. I know that an election is coming and that we all have half an eye to the audience outside the Chamber, rather than to that inside it. But I hope that when we are deliberating in Committee we will try to think about why parents and children need better systems than the current one and that we will not seek the easy soundbite to wreck a good Bill. I look forward to working with the House in the Committee stage of the Bill.
	On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Grand Committee.

Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (Disapplication of Part IV for Northern Ireland Parties, etc) Order 2005

Baroness Amos: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 20 December 2004 be approved. [4th Report from the Joint Committee].

Baroness Amos: My Lords, this order continues to exempt Northern Ireland from those provisions concerning donation controls as laid out in Part IV of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 for a period of two years from 16 February. The provisions have the effect of extending the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (Disapplication of Part IV For Northern Ireland Parties, etc) Order 2001.
	The original order was made in 2001 to exempt the Northern Ireland parties from the requirement to comply with Part IV of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 that set out the control of donations to registered parties. It was brought into force because of the special circumstances that existed in Northern Ireland as regards the continuing fear of the intimidation of donors and Ireland's special role in the political life of Northern Ireland, as set out in the Belfast agreement.
	Before I explain the various parts that make up this legislation, I want to say that I fully understand the concerns that many noble Lords have about this legislation, particularly in the light of recent events in Northern Ireland.
	As I have already explained to some noble Lords outside the Chamber, it is our intention to introduce funding arrangements for Northern Ireland that are closer to those that exist in Great Britain, while including a facility for donations from Irish citizens in order to remain faithful to the provisions of the Good Friday agreement. We also need to ensure that the system that we introduce takes reasonable account of the very different system of regulation that exists in Ireland. That is why this order is for two further years, and not for four years like the original order.
	While we are committed to greater transparency for political donations, it has not been possible, within the current timeframe, to move toward these more transparent arrangements for the following reasons. First, there is still concern across the community in Northern Ireland about an ongoing threat to donors by way of intimidation.
	Secondly, sectarianism is unfortunately still prevalent in Northern Ireland society. If the names of donors were published, there is a danger that business donors could see their businesses being boycotted by customers from the other side of sectarian divide.
	Thirdly, parties need some time to adjust to new arrangements that take account of what we still hope will be the ending of paramilitary activity. Finally, there is a need to find a suitable solution to the question of Irish donations that can meet the Irish Government's concerns and be made compatible with our system.
	We will be undertaking detailed discussions with the political parties, the Irish Government and the Electoral Commission over the coming months to try to reach agreement on putting in place such new arrangements. My right honourable friend John Spellar has written to all the main political parties asking for their proposals in writing by early March on how a new system might work.
	I turn briefly to the detail of the order. Article 2 disapplies those provisions in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 that control donations to Northern Ireland-registered parties for a period of two years from 16 February. Article 3 disapplies those provisions in the 2000 Act to regulated donees resident in Northern Ireland. Articles 4, 5 and 6 place restrictions, where necessary, on the meaning of the term "registered party" in relation to parties and regulated donors in Great Britain. I commend the order to the House.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 20 December 2004 be approved. [4th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Amos.)

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I thank the Lord President for bringing the order before us today. Not so very long ago I was minded—and made it well known—to oppose the order. However, I have to tell the House that politics have worked. I have been seriously lobbied by all the Northern Ireland parties, except Sinn Fein. I have listened and believe that approval of the order today is the right move.
	I am encouraged by what the noble Baroness has told us that the Government are doing in finding a new way forward in funding political parties. Previously, I made that point from your Lordships' Dispatch Box. It is very important that we should bring the funding of Northern Ireland parties more into line with that in the United Kingdom and that we should look at state funding, if that is what it takes. As many of your Lordships will know, there are many reasons why similar legislation for funding of political parties in Northern Ireland cannot be, and probably should not be, the same as those in England. I support the order.

Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for introducing the order and for her patience with the position that I have taken. I have long indicated that we on these Benches want to see very positive steps being made to introduce much greater transparency into the financing of political parties in Northern Ireland. That is also the Government's stated aim.
	Previously, I suggested that progress could be made towards this objective by requiring the parties to list the number of donations they receive in bands of £1,000 and to publish these annually. Anonymity could be maintained, but at least some transparency would be introduced—and we would be getting some movement. The Government said they would consider that and possibly discuss it in future deliberations with the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland parties.
	On 11 January we debated the Statement of the Secretary of State after the Northern Bank robbery. I said that events had now overtaken my modest proposal. As a result of that robbery it was necessary to lift the exemption that the Northern Ireland parties enjoy from the provisions of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The Act requires all parties in the UK to publish details of all donations above £5,000 at central level received annually and excludes foreign donations. I am aware that the situation is different in a number of respects in Northern Ireland, but those can no longer be an excuse for a further two years' disapplication of the Act.
	I am grateful to the noble Baroness for repeating the reasons why Northern Ireland is special, but we have heard that all before. We heard that during the passage of the Act in 2000. There were undertakings to have consultations with everyone. Here we are, four years later, with no more progress. I predict that we will be here in two years' time for another disapplication order because things will not have changed. Sectarianism will not go away in the next two years and many of the other conditions will still obtain.
	If disapplication were to be extended, as the order intends, the laundering of illegal moneys into the coffers of Sinn Fein—or any other party for that matter—is made that much easier and more difficult to trace. For that reason the Liberal Democrats cannot positively support the passage of this order today.
	I should like to make a more general point. While direct rule obtains, most Northern Ireland legislation—and there is a lot of it—comes mainly in the form of secondary legislation, such as the present order. The convention is that such orders are not normally opposed. I have to say that, now there is no prospect of a return to devolved government for a long time, it cannot be satisfactory for the convention to be followed in all circumstances. It would be highly undesirable if it were observed because it seriously impairs the operations of democratic parliamentary procedures. Those procedures provide for opposition in the form of amendment or outright rejection or reversal of government proposals. Why should Northern Ireland continue to be denied that?
	The Government must recognise the unsatisfactory nature of the present situation and suggest other ways for Northern Ireland business to be dealt with by Westminster. When may we expect some new proposals to improve the transaction of Northern Ireland business?

Lord Laird: My Lords, I cautiously welcome the introduction of this disapplication of Part IV of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 order 2005. There is no doubt that in the present circumstances some restrictions on the publication of financial donations to political parties in Northern Ireland are necessary. Sadly, should such information be made public at this time, some donors would be likely to suffer intimidation and feel threatened by such exposure. This is the nature of the political situation still facing us in the Province.
	Of course, like many issues in Northern Ireland, the disapplication question is a double-edged sword. One of the major problems facing democratic or constitutional parties in Northern Ireland is that the huge amount of unregulated financial donations that arrive from the United States badly distort the electoral process. It is well known that the IRA today spends much of its spare time raising money for its political wing—Sinn Fein—often using the most innovative of methods, as I am sure your Lordships are well aware. That, of course, creates a very uneven playing field when it comes to electoral politics, and provides a springboard for paramilitaries to engage in the sort of continuous electioneering and self-publicity that is simply not feasible for Northern Ireland's constitutional parties.
	This point should not be lost on the Republic of Ireland's Government, nor their electorate for that matter, as they too face the same growing problem in their jurisdiction where Sinn Fein is concerned. They too have an interest in ensuring that parties wedded to criminality, money laundering and illegal fund raising do not convert this into an unfair advantage on polling day. Recent political figures in the republic reveal that in spite of their unorthodox fund-raising activities, Sinn Fein still enjoys around 10 per cent of the electorate's support. The Dublin Government do not seem unduly perturbed by that fact. I am sure that Members of this House will agree with me that they should be.
	That brings me to the point that I wish to place on record this evening. There is a clear need, and, in fact, a necessity, for the future introduction of parallel legislation in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland to address this issue of party funding and donations. The UK and the Republic of Ireland now form one common travel area, one common economic zone within the EU, and share ever-increasing economic interests. The Government should work with Dublin and press the Irish Government to introduce legislation that will address this problem both here, in Northern Ireland and in the Irish Republic. If they fail to do so, they may be faced with a situation where we have to consider the restriction on the movement of monies from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom.

Lord Kilclooney: My Lords, I welcome very strongly this order and the conversion of the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, in that he now supports it. As we have been told in the debate, all democratic parties in Northern Ireland unanimously support the order. That is more important today than it was two years ago.
	The omens in Northern Ireland are not good. I hope everyone is paying attention to what is happening on the ground in Northern Ireland. Sectarianism has decreased but the activity of paramilitaries is on the increase. The IRA is recruiting once again. If that turns into republican terrorism, there will be loyalist terrorism again. Those who contribute or subscribe to political parties will be identified and they will have a problem. Therefore, they will stop supporting the different political parties—Ulster Unionist Party, Democratic Unionist Party, Alliance Party and the Social Democratic and Labour Party.
	I therefore strongly welcome the measure, because I feel that it may be required for more than two years. I am very disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, feels that the time is now opportune for people to be identified as subscribing to political parties. That will be very dangerous if the situation on the ground in Northern Ireland begins to deteriorate.
	Finally, I would love to see the declaration of funding for political parties if times were normal; and I hate the phrase that Northern Ireland is a special case, because I would particularly like to see where the money from America for IRA/Sinn Fein is coming from. Let us not forget that, during the past 30 years, the United States of America has been the main financier of terrorism in the island of Ireland—a sad reflection of what goes on in the USA.
	So I certainly welcome the measure, but I say to the Minister, be cautious about any measure to finance political parties within Northern Ireland from state funds. We could in practice end up financing the IRA and, certainly, Fianna Fail.

Lord Dubs: My Lords, if the world in Northern Ireland were as we would like it to be, we would not need the measure and everything would be fine. Unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Smith, talks as if the world were as he would like it to be, rather than as it is. Sadly, the measure is a necessity. It reflects the reality of Northern Ireland and allows the main democratic parties to have some assurance that their donors will not be intimidated from giving money. It is sad that that is the case; but it is the case. Therefore, I support the order; the Government have no choice.

Lord Fitt: My Lords, there have been many past occasions when I have disagreed with the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton. Reading the order, I did not know what line to take on it. I take my line from my understanding of the question of funding from outside sources in Northern Ireland. I recall the debates that took place in this House, which had serious content, when I warned that the people who would gain most from being allowed to take outside subscriptions would be Sinn Fein and the IRA. Certainly, Fianna Fail, Fine Gael—to some extent—and the SDLP receive some funding from America, but it is minuscule compared with the funding that the IRA receives.
	As we know, the IRA has no difficulty in funding its organisation, as we saw from the Northern Bank affair recently. I hesitate to help legislation to stay in existence that will allow further contributions to come from the United States. It may be that, with a second term of the Bush Administration, a different line will be taken from that under President Clinton. We hear that Bush is so opposed to extremism and terrorism. He must be well aware of the terrorist tactics now being employed in Northern Ireland.
	Only today, there are rumours in the press in Northern Ireland—indeed, in today's News Letter, I believe; a newspaper in Dublin; and a news report in the Daily Mail—to the effect that there is a split within the IRA and Sinn Fein between those who would pretend and make us believe that they were taking the path of peace and the others, who are determined to resurrect their violent war tactics. Either those reports are irresponsible or they have been deliberately placed. I noticed that some of them read, "our correspondent says", when no one knows who is the correspondent and we are told little. But there seems to be an implied threat in those reports, if they are true, that if Sinn Fein does not get its way, there may be a resort to violence.
	When the Prime Minister met Gerry Adams at Chequers last week, a few weeks after the Northern Bank raid, I wonder whether they discussed the order. Did Gerry Adams demand to get the order, otherwise there would be a return and resort to violence? There is no doubt that that is the ace card played by Sinn Fein and the IRA on each and every occasion when it is necessary: "If we do not get another concession from you, we will give you another Canary Wharf".
	This legislation gives the IRA and Sinn Fein another concession of further approval to get money from outside sources. I repeat that any money that other political parties from Northern Ireland receive is minuscule, a drop in the ocean, compared with the subscription that Sinn Fein gets from the United States, which has certainly helped Sinn Fein to build a political machine that is now the biggest in Northern Ireland. I hesitate to give my approval to an order that will help Sinn Fein along the way.

Lord Hylton: My Lords, when the Lord President of the Council replies, will she be kind enough to say whether the Government considered a delay of one year? Would that not be far more satisfactory from the democratic point of view—and, indeed, from an all-United Kingdom point of view—than a two-year delay?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I recognise the difference of opinion around the Chamber. The Government had hoped to resolve this matter at the end of the four-year period. However, that has not been possible, for the reasons that I described in my opening remarks. I thank those noble Lords who have said that they will support the order and recognise the context in which the Government are advancing it.
	I appreciate the concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton. We have of course been in correspondence on the matter. The reason for the two-year extension—this is also, in part, a response to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton—is that a considerable amount of consultation must take place in relation to the order. We chose a two-year period as a recognition of the need to keep the pressure on to resolve the matter, while recognising that one year may not have been sufficient to take us forward.
	The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, about the need for new proposals to deal with the transaction of Northern Ireland business, is even more pressing in the current context. I will of course be discussing that with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I have one other point to make to the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, which is that the parties let the Electoral Commission have the figures for the total amount received through donations for the financial year. I recognise that that does not meet the proposal made by the noble Lord, but we feel that introducing our current arrangement for Great Britain would hurt those parties in Northern Ireland which believe in the rule of law.
	The noble Lord, Lord Laird, talked about the need to work with the Irish Government. The new arrangements will take into account the UK/Irish dimension and we will of course be working closely with the Irish Government during the coming months, as I made clear in my opening remarks.
	The noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, advised caution with respect to introducing measures relating to state funding. I hear the noble Lord and will feed that into the consultation process. We have asked the political parties for their proposals by early March.
	The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, raised the issue of the discussions that have been taking place. I am unable to say anything about the nature of those discussions. However, I will say that I had discussions with a number of Peers last year about the representations that we received from political parties in Northern Ireland on this order. So I hope that I have indirectly answered the points that the noble Lord made in concluding his remarks.
	I hope that that has addressed the points raised. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, for his support. I know that he was concerned about the order.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Northern Ireland

Baroness Amos: rose to move, That this House takes note of developments in Northern Ireland.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, there have been a number of developments in Northern Ireland in recent weeks that are of significant interest.
	Although we failed to achieve a political settlement in the intensive discussions that took place following the Leeds Castle conference in September, there was a palpable sense of optimism before Christmas, based on the huge progress that had been made towards that goal. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister gave expression to that optimism when he spoke in Belfast on 8 December. Since then, that optimism has evaporated. The robbery of the Northern Bank, carried out by the Provisional IRA before Christmas, has, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said, seriously damaged the political process and the prospects for the early return of devolved government.
	Today's debate needs to be put in context. There has been significant progress in Northern Ireland in the past decade, particularly since the Belfast agreement. At the height of the troubles, the death toll was a staggering 470. Many thought that the situation in Northern Ireland would never improve; that the levels of violence we saw on the streets and on our television screens would never abate; and that the tensions between sections of the community were incapable of healing. We have come a long way since those dark days. The problem has not completely gone away—the four deaths last year were four too many—but the contrast is very telling.
	The improvement owes much to the series of political initiatives that successive governments in Northern Ireland have taken to bring together political parties of all traditions with a view to reaching agreement on a peaceful and democratic future. Noble Lords on all Benches have played their part in these. Most significantly, the all-party negotiations—started in 1996 by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, and continued by the present Government—resulted, on Good Friday 1998, in the Belfast agreement: a framework for devolved government in Northern Ireland, based on a secure constitutional position that respected the views of all sections of the community.
	The impact of that changed climate is not only felt in political circles but is instrumental in Northern Ireland's economic prosperity and growth. There is a positive story to tell. Although Northern Ireland has seen a decline in the traditional heavy industries of the past, the growth of hi-tech industries in the Province has more than made up for that loss. Northern Ireland has seen an increase in manufacturing output of 13 per cent, with productivity growing by 37 per cent over the same period. Unemployment has halved over the past decade, with last year seeing the numbers claiming benefit in Northern Ireland at the lowest level since 1971. Northern Ireland's popularity as a tourist destination continues to increase, with more than 2 million visitors arriving last year—25 per cent more people than live in Northern Ireland. The revenue generated from that sector, over £300 million, is an important factor in sustaining the economy, particularly in rural areas.
	Although Northern Ireland still has challenges, the House will recognise how important those developments are in helping society there leave behind its troubled past. Although there have been difficulties, tensions and interruptions, there is no doubt that the institutions of the Good Friday agreement have proved their worth. Local politicians dealing with local issues is the right way forward for Northern Ireland.
	Sadly, it is now nearly two and a half years since the suspension of the devolved institutions, following an earlier series of incidents, responsibility for which lay with the Provisional IRA. During that time, my right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State, and others, have worked tirelessly with the parties in Northern Ireland to try to find a way through the impasse to allow the Assembly to be restored once more. That brings me back to the developments of recent weeks, when we have seen hope rise and plummet dramatically.
	We seemed close to achieving the important goal of a restored Assembly in Northern Ireland, based on co-operation and power-sharing, in December last year. The texts published by the British and Irish Governments set out an important series of commitments and statements that it had been hoped would be made in the event of an agreement, paving the way for early restoration. They were also unambiguous in making clear, as the Government have done consistently, that if a political settlement is to be reached, all illegal activity must come to an end.
	If the improvements already achieved in Northern Ireland are to be secured for the long term, it is vital that paramilitaries, and the violence and criminality associated with them, come to an end. That is important not only to build the trust necessary for democratic politics to work but also to enable all the people of Northern Ireland to go about their business freely with the protection of the rule of law.
	If the paramilitaries on both sides and the political parties associated with them want to participate in Northern Ireland's future, tough decisions and unambiguous responses are needed from them. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has made clear, people must decide whether they are part of the democratic process or not. The decision is simple, and the time to take that decision is fast running out.
	The immediate issue is what response the Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein will make to the calls from both the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach to abandon all their terrorist and criminal activity.
	I know that noble Lords are interested in the next report from the Independent Monitoring Commission. We expect to receive an IMC report on recent paramilitary activity early next week.
	The Government want to see inclusive power-sharing institutions operating in Northern Ireland, as was envisaged by the Belfast agreement; that remains our ultimate goal. But the agreement also envisaged an end to paramilitary activity. If that continues, and the paramilitaries refuse to abandon violence and criminality, the two Governments would, reluctantly, have to consider an alternative approach.
	My right honourable friend has put those points in the starkest terms to the leadership of Sinn Fein. They cannot take their seats in the government of Northern Ireland if the IRA continues with its terrorist and criminal activities.
	There has been major progress in Northern Ireland in recent years, and I know that we all hope to see continued economic and social progress. But we are some way from being able to predict a date for the re-establishment of an inclusive, power-sharing executive. I have made clear where, in the Government's view, the responsibility for that lies. This Government and the Irish Government are not giving up on that goal.
	Before I finish, I would like to take this opportunity to mention a forthcoming development to protect the integrity of the Northern Ireland electoral system. The Government will shortly introduce the Electoral Registration (Northern Ireland) Bill which will have the purpose of retrospectively reinstating those eligible individuals resident in Northern Ireland who were on the electoral register last September but did not re-register during the annual canvass last autumn. The Bill will also reinstate the carry-forward, on a temporary basis, to take effect following the annual canvass this autumn. This will have the effect of keeping those individuals who are currently registered, but who do not re-register this autumn, on the register for a further 12 months.
	It is essential that the register is both accurate and comprehensive. The Bill will address this problem on a temporary basis until we have finalised and implemented a new electoral registration process for Northern Ireland.
	I end by restating the Government's commitment to restoring devolved government in Northern Ireland. There have been meetings involving my right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State and parties in Northern Ireland to review the position. The Taoiseach and Irish Ministers have been conducting their own meetings and the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach will meet tomorrow.
	I do not hold out the prospect of early progress, but I want to assure the House that we shall continue to work in close partnership with the Irish Government to ensure a stable, peaceful and exclusively democratic future for Northern Ireland.
	Moved, That this House takes note of developments in Northern Ireland.—(Baroness Amos.)

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, perhaps I may first address the comments of the Lord President about the forthcoming electoral Bill. We on this side of the House understand that this Bill is forthcoming, but we obviously cannot make any decisions or agreements about it until my honourable friend David Lidington, the shadow Secretary of State, and others have had a chance to study it and to be briefed on it. So I acknowledge that the Bill is on its way, but the Government should not make any assumptions about Her Majesty's Opposition's views on it.
	This debate comes against a backdrop of almost complete political paralysis in Northern Ireland, as just outlined by the noble Baroness, and, I am afraid, against a backdrop of seriously disquieting reports in both the London press yesterday and the News Letter in Belfast today concerning the probability or likelihood of the IRA going back to war.
	We are approaching the seventh anniversary of the Belfast agreement. There is no devolved government at Stormont. The people of Northern Ireland are governed, as they have been for virtually all of the period since 1972, by direct rule from Westminster. In the seven years since the agreement, devolved government has operated for only some 27 months. There have been four suspensions, the latest in October 2002—more than two years ago.
	In that time, of course, the political landscape has shifted, brought about in some part by the polarisation of the electorate in the November 2003 Assembly elections towards the two extreme parties, the DUP and Sinn Fein. This was entirely predictable and was caused in large measure by the constant interference in the negotiation process by Downing Street and the Irish Government, linked to their refusal to believe that terrorists are criminals and that leopards never change their spots. It resulted in the upstaging of David Trimble and the Ulster Unionist Party and the moderate nationalist party, the SDLP. The strong middle ground is now very much weakened.
	Before Christmas, the Prime Minister told us that we were "tantalisingly close" to reaching a comprehensive agreement between the two extremist parties that would have seen devolved government restored. Few of us believed him, but many of us hoped for the impossible dream: Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams shaking hands and sharing power in Northern Ireland with the IRA gone away.
	Regrettably, it was not to be. First, the IRA refused to allow any visual evidence of arms decommissioning—a happening which is absolutely vital if confidence is to be restored across the community in Northern Ireland and the electorate is to believe that arms have indeed been put beyond use and the IRA taken out of the political equation. Then, the £26.5 million bank heist, as it is known, took place in Belfast. As the Chief Constable, the Prime Minister, the Taoiseach and many others have made absolutely clear, that was the work of the Provisional IRA.
	The only people who deny it are members of the republican movement—Sinn Fein and the IRA. Indeed, I was invited by Sinn Fein to meet and listen to Mr Adams and Mr McGuiness in Committee Room 13 last Thursday. I have to say that, in the face of those lined up against them, their denials have more than a hollow ring. I only hope that, by now, reality and common sense have arrived in 10 Downing Street.
	The draft IRA statement which appeared in the outline agreement in December was widely welcomed as an important step forward. It referred to the organisation moving into a "new mode". At the time, my honourable friend the shadow Secretary of State was, I think, the only person who asked whether this, and the promises not to engage in any activity that might endanger any new agreement, included an end to organised crime.
	The IRA gave us its answer to that question on 20 December in the vaults of the Northern Bank. As Bertie Ahern, the Taoiseach, rightly pointed out, senior Sinn Fein figures must have known about this operation while they were involved in a negotiation that would have seen them take up ministerial posts in the Government of Northern Ireland.
	It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, once again, we have all been taken for one gigantic ride by Sinn Fein/IRA. Where do we go from here, now that the task has been made infinitely more difficult? In this context, I am critical of the way in which the Government have responded to the heist. I appreciate that the Prime Minister made some tough-sounding statements when he met Sinn Fein last week. The problem is that he has made similar statements before and then nothing happens. Far too often, Mr Blair is all talk. By meeting Sinn Fein at Chequers, he sent out the wrong signal. Sinn Fein will see this as business as usual.
	There can be no question in the foreseeable future of Sinn Fein taking up posts in the Northern Ireland Government. More than ever, it has to demonstrate in words and deeds that it has severed all links with paramilitary and other forms of criminality. I was pleased to hear similar words from the Lord President.
	As my party has stated on many occasions, the same principles that the Taoiseach applies in Dublin must apply also in Belfast. Sinn Fein must complete the transition from terror to exclusively democratic and peaceful means. By all means, we should let the Secretary of State and his Ministers meet Sinn Fein on the basis of their electoral mandate, but until Sinn Fein clearly demonstrates that it is breaking its links with crime, that should be as far as it goes. Continued high-profile access to the Prime Minister for a party which remains inextricably linked with armed criminals is not only wrong but insulting to those other parties, including democratic nationalists, that are committed to pursuing their objectives by exclusively peaceful means.
	At the same time, I am not alone in finding it reprehensible that the Prime Minister's chief of staff should be personally negotiating a reported £70 million "retraining" package for members of the UDA—a kind of "New Deal for the UDA". It is not surprising that many people in Northern Ireland think that Her Majesty's Government will buy peace at any price.
	Our preferred option remains an inclusive settlement based on the Belfast agreement, but, at the moment, that simply does not look to be a runner. It was the Prime Minister who said before the Leeds Castle talks in September that if there was no agreement, we would have to look at other possible ways forward. There is no agreement, and the Government must begin to consider alternative ways forward.
	If Northern Ireland is to be governed under direct rule, direct rule Ministers must be made more accountable to the people of Northern Ireland. There are a number of ways in which that could be done. There is the idea of a consultative Assembly, which would scrutinise the work of the NIO Ministers and the Northern Ireland departments. There is the corporate Assembly model suggested by the DUP. There are proposals by the SDLP for the British and Irish Governments to appoint heads of the Northern Ireland departments. Some have also suggested that the democratic parties move ahead without Sinn Fein and form a voluntary coalition at Stormont. Some of those ideas are obviously more practicable and worthy of more serious scrutiny than others.
	I am increasingly attracted to the local government option where power-sharing between the parties has been an established fact for 20 years. I would urge the Government to press ahead with the reform of public administration, so that whatever emerges at Stormont—on a regional level—the people of Northern Ireland can exercise a greater degree of control over their own affairs at a local level.
	Northern Ireland has too many local authorities with too few powers. We should be looking for fewer councils with greater powers. That would not preclude—nor is it intended to preclude—a return to full-scale devolution at Stormont, but it would introduce at least some much needed accountability in how services are delivered under direct rule.
	Most people do not believe that there will be any progress before the general election which is expected in May. After that election, I naturally hope that another government will be in charge of Northern Ireland. Whoever is elected should not allow the intransigence of one party to have a veto on moving the political processes forward.
	By all means let us pursue an inclusive and comprehensive agreement, but that will only occur when all parties accept the same democratic standards. Until then, local government might prove to be what the late Ian Gow used to describe as,
	"the least dangerous and most hopeful way forward".—[Official Report, Commons, 5/4/90; col. 1334.]

Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, this is a very timely debate for two reasons: first, the House does not have enough opportunity to discuss Northern Ireland in general; and, secondly—which will be my focus as it was basically for the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran—the disruption to the restoration of a devolved Assembly and power-sharing executive that resulted from the £26 million robbery from the Northern Bank.
	In the Chief Constable's judgment, as has been said, the Provisional IRA was responsible for that heist. Given the inextricable link between the IRA and Sinn Fein, both the local political parties in Northern Ireland and the two Governments in Dublin and Westminster have concluded that further progress on devolution is not possible until Sinn Fein and the IRA cease from all legal activities.
	As other noble Lords have said, until punishment beatings, intimidation, extortion and robberies cease, and until there is a full decommissioning of IRA arms and an unequivocal commitment to employ only democratic means by Sinn Fein, the process is at a standstill.
	The fact that the Irish Government fully endorse the Chief Constable's judgment adds immensely to their credibility. Furthermore, the ordinary citizens of Northern Ireland—be they republican, nationalist, Unionist, Alliance or of no party persuasion—overwhelmingly believe that the IRA carried out that outrageous theft.
	The political parties, however, disagree on what should now happen. Predictably, both Unionist parties want to see the Executive restored, but with Sinn Fein excluded. That also seems to be the official policy of the Conservative Party. Indeed, Mr Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, is reported to have threatened exclusion when he met Mr Adams at Chequers last Friday. In my view, that is a very unlikely prospect because it is not practical politics.
	For a start, although the SDLP is near-apoplectic about the latest antics of the IRA, it is politically impossible for it to go along with the exclusion of Sinn Fein from a reconstituted executive. The same applies to the Dublin Government. While the Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern, has lambasted Sinn Fein in terms far stronger than anyone else and has made his exasperation very clear, he, too, at this point, could not agree to any exclusion of Sinn Fein from a newly formed executive. The situation would have to worsen very much more than it has for that to be an option. If things did deteriorate any further, it would be a purely academic argument. There would be absolutely no possibility of the devolved institutions being restored.
	In some ways, the present impasse suits the DUP. Even before the bank robbery, it seemed to be playing for time and agreeing to nothing until after the UK general election. It hoped to consolidate its position at the expense of the UUP. Similarly, Sinn Fein aspired to make further gains at the expense of the SDLP. Both outcomes, it has to be said, remain likely possibilities. Thus, the Westminster election will be a rerun of the November 2003 Assembly election—only more so. The polarisation of Northern Ireland politics will be even greater. That is not an outcome that I particularly desire, but it is the most likely and we must face the reality of the situation.
	While the robbery was the precipitating cause of the present impasse, the prospects for the resumption of talks were not looking good before the bank raid. As I remarked in the House just before Christmas, manana politics were in full swing and, accordingly, political progress was painfully slow. It is unlikely that Mr Ian Paisley would have agreed to work with Sinn Fein in a power-sharing executive in the coming months, even if, as he demanded, satisfactory photographic evidence of arms decommissioning had been forthcoming. On past form, he would have found other reasons for further delay. I am trying to say that while the prevailing situation is worse than before the bank raid, it is so only in degree. Its fundamental character has not changed.
	The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, said that the question before us now is: what can practically be done? Plan A has been stopped in its tracks. The two Governments have repeatedly stated that there is no plan B. All that we have therefore is a stalled plan A. If plan A is to have any prospect of being revived at a later stage, it has to be parked for a year.
	A 12-month interim plan has to be substituted and accepted by all the political parties, which, of course, will not be easy. But some initiative of that kind is vital to maintain momentum and safeguard the prospect of fully implementing the Belfast agreement in the not too distant future.
	The proposition of an interim plan, as I have outlined, revolves around the Assembly being reconvened as soon as possible—say, immediately after the UK general election in May at the latest. It will elect a presiding officer and its primary task should be to act as a pre-legislative scrutiny body for all Northern Ireland legislation, which is considerable while direct rule obtains.
	Such work would be of great value in two respects. First, it would assist this House and another place by indicating what the elected representatives thought about new policy proposals and it would assist in holding Westminster Ministers more fully to account. There would also be an authentic and representative Northern Irish voice added to our deliberations, which is so obviously lacking now.
	Secondly, 12 months of exercising that important scrutiny function would constitute a major confidence-building measure. It would demonstrate that the parties could work together at least at that level. It would also provide a reasonable period during which Sinn Fein would have a further opportunity to demonstrate its full acceptance of the principles of liberal democracy and its total commitment to the decommissioning of the IRA's weapons stocks.
	The political parties should be told in no uncertain manner that unless they agree to such an interim plan or something like it, the pay and allowances of MLAs will stop within the next three months. Without an interim plan, the political prospects for Northern Ireland are very bleak indeed. Paying £500,000 a month to keep Stormont and its habitués in limbo cannot continue. A proactive step of the kind that I have outlined is a necessary prerequisite if plan A is ever to have a remote chance of being revived. I would ask the noble Baroness the Lord President of the Council to respond to the suggestion of an interim plan. If the Government disagree, what new initiatives will they take to get the show back on the road? Repeating what we have attempted before is all very well, but time is so critical that we must have a new set of initiatives to get things back into reasonable shape.
	At the outset I predicted that the suspension of the Assembly would be a very long one, and so it has proved. New elections to it were postponed for far too long and I urged for them to be called in June 2003 at the latest. After they were eventually held in the following November, I warned that if agreement could not be reached to restore the devolved institutions within the year, the likelihood of devolution would be postponed for another generation. We are perilously close to that eventuality. If the process cannot be resuscitated, direct rule will continue, but not in the form of the status quo ante of the Belfast agreement. As I have said before, it will take the form of a de facto London/Dublin condominium, pace the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney. That is not what Members on these Benches wish to see. We would much prefer Northern Ireland to develop into a fully mature and devolved liberal democracy. But a condominium will be the likely result unless a new initiative is taken now along the lines that I have suggested.
	Finally, I turn to the question raised by the Lord President of the Council on updating and improving the electoral register. We will have to look at this very closely indeed when the Bill comes before us. The reasons will have to be extremely cogent and safeguards to ensure against personation will have to be watertight.

Lord Fitt: My Lords, I listened carefully to what was said by the noble Baroness the Leader of the House. Once again I have heard the repeated mantra: there can be no place for a political party in Northern Ireland which has the support of a paramilitary organisation, and therefore it cannot have any say in the governance of Northern Ireland. I first heard those words in 1970 when the first British soldier was killed not far from where I live. That marked the onset of the present campaign by the IRA.
	I have heard it said since by a number of Prime Ministers at the Dispatch Box: Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, Jim Callaghan, John Major and the current Prime Minister. All used almost exactly the same words: "We cannot tolerate a situation where Sinn Fein, which is inextricably linked to the IRA, can have either a place or a say in the governance of Northern Ireland".
	All I can do is ask the question that I have put so many times in both Houses: when will the Government see that they have come to the end of the road—that there are no further concessions to be made? The robbery of the Northern Bank was so appalling, in particular the ill treatment of two employees, that one would have thought that that would be the end of the road. The Government would now say, "We can no longer have any political dealings with you". When speaking this afternoon, the noble Baroness did not, as we say in Northern Ireland, put her tooth in it when she said that the bank robbery was carried out by the IRA. I suppose that she has some evidence for saying so, as has Bertie Ahern, the Taoiseach in the Republic. I believe that the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has evidence for saying so.
	I shall not say what John Hume and some other compatriots are saying—"Let us see that evidence". Perhaps at some point in the future there will be evidence. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, when I say that I found it very distasteful and repugnant when the first thing we read in the press after the bank robbery was that Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, had been taken to Chequers for an hour-long discussion with the Prime Minister. It does not take the Prime Minister an hour to say to the leader of Sinn Fein, "If you carry on your association with the IRA and all its extremities, we cannot have any further dealings with you".
	Rumours are circulating in Northern Ireland that there is a split in the Provisional IRA. Does the noble Baroness have any indication of that, or of how deep it is? Some are saying that Martin McGuinness knew that the bank robbery was going to take place, but did not tell Gerry Adams because he would not have supported it. I do not believe any of it. I believe that the IRA is the IRA and I believe that Continuity IRA and Real IRA are all of the same ilk. They were all generated by the Provisional IRA, which has carried out such murder and mayhem in Northern Ireland.
	Now we are in a position where I keep asking the question, not only in this House, but also in my conscience in the dead of night: when will the Prime Minister be driven to the conclusion that he cannot reach an accommodation with the IRA as it is presently constituted? The IRA feels that if it keeps going the way it is, it will gain seats in the Republic at the next election. It will become part of the government of the Republic of Ireland. I hesitate to say this, but a month after the bank robbery there are people in Northern Ireland who have forgotten all about it. If you talk about it, they say, "Ah, but that was a month ago". The people of Northern Ireland are prepared to accept anything that will stop the gunmen roaming our streets.
	I may again disagree with some of my noble friends when I say that there is no great clamour for a return to devolved government in Stormont. I hesitate to say that because people might point the finger at me. But I go there every week and talk to many people. One fellow has repeatedly told me, "As long as I get my giro every Friday, I don't care if there is never a return to Stormont". But for the elected politicians—the extremists in the DUP and the extremists in Sinn Fein, and the beleaguered ones in the official Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP—Stormont is all they have to live on. Naturally they will demand that Northern Ireland be given back devolution in which there is a role for them to play.
	I believe that the recent bank robbery was a kick in the teeth to both Prime Ministers, the Taoiseach and Tony Blair. The IRA had been promising that it would give up criminality and that it was prepared to go along with the wishes of Irish people both north and south of the border who voted with their feet in support of the 1998 Good Friday agreement. All those people are now being told, "Even though you voted for that, times have changed".
	I heard my noble friend say this afternoon something that I have heard many times before: "Things are not as bad as they used to be. There is peace, but it is an imperfect peace. You should be grateful for small mercies". An awful lot of people in Northern Ireland are not grateful for small mercies. They want to see a total end to the criminality of the IRA. I have said before in debates in this House that people do not see the significance of that on estates like Ballymurphy or in Crossmaglen.
	After the bank raid, the RUC had what it thought was information and went into the republican quarter of Ballymurphy to carry out a search. Within five minutes, the IRA was able to mobilise a crowd and to persuade it to have a war with the RUC men and their vehicles. The IRA can switch on a crowd which supports its activities but it cannot switch it off so easily. However, it still maintains the reach and ability to switch a crowd on and off when it appears that the forces of law and order are about to apprehend its members.
	Do the Minister and Tony Blair have any idea when it will be possible for the forces of law and order—namely, the police—to go into the kind of estates I have described which are under the complete domination of the IRA? Far from having gone away, the IRA is still there and in total and absolute control of such areas. Its members are carrying out criminal activities if and when it suits them to do so.
	As I said, I have heard a succession of Prime Ministers speak about what the IRA will have to do. I refer to paragraph 13 of the joint declaration from Hillsborough. When the Prime Minister spoke at the Customs House in Belfast, he said that paragraph 13 should be implemented in all its aspects and that criminality must be given up for good before there could be any hope of Sinn Fein—the inextricably linked political wing of the IRA—being given a part of any prominence in the Northern Ireland government.
	I deeply regret having to say that, at the moment, I do not see any circumstances emerging where Sinn Fein and the IRA will give up their use of weapons and criminality until they have achieved what they want to achieve politically—and that is further influence, not only in Northern Ireland but in the Republic as well.

Lord Dubs: My Lords, I want to say something about what the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, has said but, before I do so, I want to say something a little more optimistic.
	On the Friday before last I was in Cookstown. I had been asked to open an integrated primary school called Phoenix. It was a wonderful occasion. There had been an advertisement in the local papers and some parents had got together. I talked to them—they were mainly women—and they said that they had expected some doctors and lawyers to be present to help to get the thing going but they did not show up. So we had to do it ourselves. They had set up this small school—such schools, of course, start from small beginnings—and both communities were there. Members of the Catholic Church, priests and clergymen of various faiths were all there. This represented to me the optimistic side of Northern Ireland; the side where people were coming together because they wanted the best for the next generation and for that generation to live in harmony with each other.
	I cannot accept what the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, said about being at the end of the road. That is too pessimistic a view when you consider the spirit of the people of Northern Ireland and the fact that the vast majority of them believe that life is better. Of course they detest the criminality that is seen there, but their quality of life is immeasurably better than it was. Although one death is too many, the number of people killed has fallen way below the numbers of earlier years. The PSNI has not used any baton rounds for two-and-a-half years; the marching season was less tense last year at Drumcree than in previous years. Maybe it will not last, but fundamentally progress has been made. It would be a tragedy if we were to throw it away and say "There is nothing to be done. We simply cannot continue".
	That is why I believe most emphatically that the Prime Minister was absolutely right to meet Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. It would be awful if the British Government said "We are not going to talk to you again. There is no hope. We are not going to talk any more". That would be a sign of total failure and abdication and it would be letting down the many people of Northern Ireland who expect and hope for better things.
	I was as disappointed as anyone when I heard the news of the Northern Bank robbery. It was a blow to the process in which many of us have believed totally for a number of years. It has set back the cause of a proper, peaceful future for Northern Ireland not, I hope, for too long but for some time to come.
	We are looking for ways forward. I believe, for example, that the PSNI, with its mixed recruitment, has done very well. I have on two occasions been to Garnerville, the police training centre, and met some of the new recruits. They have impressed me by their ability, their intelligence, their understanding of the context in which they will operate and the way in which they are investing their futures in a peaceful future for Northern Ireland. A lot of good things have happened and it would be a retrograde step if we were to give up.
	The co-operation between the British and Irish Governments is as sound as it ever was. That surely is a basis for saying "Yes, we have got to move forward". I am sure that the Prime Minister said exactly what he believed when he met the members of Sinn Fein. I am sure that they are under no illusions as I believe they heard the same message from the Taoiseach a week or so earlier. So it is up to them to respond and to indicate that they will bring criminality to an end because they are as opposed to it as anyone else in Northern Ireland and as we are in this House.
	I have considered with interest the various suggestions for the way forward. I am not clear that a local government solution of the kind proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, is the way forward. I do not quite see how it would work. I believe that some of the nationalist parties would not be happy about it. I shall have to discuss it with him in more detail to have a better understanding of what he means.
	I have discussed with the SDLP and heard with interest its suggestion that the Assembly should be restored but that instead of Ministers there should be civic administrators. Again, I am not sure whether other parties will accept that. But no doubt my right honourable friend Paul Murphy will be discussing that and other suggestions with the various parties.
	I welcome what my noble friend said about forthcoming legislation in regard to the electoral registers. Many people have been concerned that a number of voters have disappeared off registers. If we are to have a political process of integrity, it must be based on all people entitled to vote being able to vote, on having the right to vote and not somehow being missed off the registers.
	Without wishing to widen the debate too much, I have heard some of my friends in the SDLP say that they are very worried about the first-past-the-post system for Westminster elections in Northern Ireland because they reflect such a polarising of society that the result will not be helpful to the peace process. It is rather late in the day to suggest that we should have a different system of elections for the Westminster Parliament in Northern Ireland only, particularly as that would open the door to people who want different systems here. I do not believe the Government would welcome that, nor would I expect them to. I simply make the point that the result of the parliamentary election in Northern Ireland, if it is to be this year, will not reflect fairly the voting inclinations because, on a winner-takes-all system, some of the parties will be seriously disadvantaged in the situation that exists there.
	The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, said that there was no wish in Northern Ireland for a return to Stormont. I do not believe that is the case. The situation may be influenced by the fact that things are not going too badly now and so they have nothing to lose, but I simply do not believe that that is the case. As democrats we surely have to say that it is right that politicians elected locally in Northern Ireland, and accountable to the people of Northern Ireland, should be responsible for making decisions that affect the lives of the people of Northern Ireland. That proposition cannot be gainsaid, and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, would not wish to go so far as to say that there should never be a return to Stormont.
	It is a difficult time, particularly for the Government, but I have confidence that my right honourable friend Paul Murphy will do the best he can to see Northern Ireland and the whole of the country through what will be a very difficult period. I remain hopeful that the Good Friday agreement still represents the right way forward, and I remain hopeful that, in the fullness of time, that is where Northern Ireland will find its peaceful future.

Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, the IRA, as Gerry Adams once famously said, has not gone away. It is, however, deeply reassuring that both the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach have publicly attributed the Northern Bank robbery to Sinn Fein/IRA. Unfortunately, this means that Sinn Fein will have an immense war chest when it comes to an election and, indeed, the money to buy influence to protect the paramilitaries. Meanwhile, it is not unlikely that Sinn Fein/IRA will continue to misjudge the real commitment of both governments to the Belfast agreement and to disregard the law in their dealings with their communities by continuing to flout that law and, at the same time, to deny that Sinn Fein has anything to do with the decisions of the Provisional IRA.
	The IRA has never wavered from its view of itself as a noble instrument of violence. It continues to recruit and train new levies, and continues to use its bully boys to control the nationalist community through violence and intimidation and to fund the IRA through a wide range of criminal activities including smuggling petrol, tobacco, DVDs—you name it. I hope very much that the Government will give yet more support to the two new entities which have begun to identify and attack—and, I hope, will eventually destroy—the power of the paramilitaries.
	The big change in the past year has been the establishment of the admirable Independent Monitoring Commission and the equally excellent Organised Crime Task Force, soon to be joined by the Assets Recovery Agency.
	The latest report of the monitoring commission makes the vital point that there must, in all future dealings with paramilitaries, be an end to deference. Any semblance of legitimacy must be denied to them. They have no right to be treated as a kind of surrogate police. Public sector organisations must stop directing people at risk to the paramilitaries to solve social problems because of their power in the community. I believe that the Government are still far too concerned to bring Sinn Fein/IRA into the police force in the PSNI in the hope that they will then begin to allow the police to operate normally within the community. Mr Adams confirmed in my presence as recently as last week that he did not, and would never, recognise British justice, which he described as an oxymoron.
	If Sinn Fein/IRA were to join the police force, where nationalists are surely already adequately represented by the SDLP, does anyone think that any part of the Special Branch would survive to provide the professional access needed, with that of the Garda, to identify the purely criminal activities of the PIRA paramilitaries? It is relevant that the Northern Ireland conference report says that, incidentally, 73 per cent of Protestants and 62 per cent of Catholics feel confident about the fairness of the criminal justice system. Some 84 per cent of Protestants and 71 per cent of Catholics believe that the courts treat equally Catholics and Protestants accused of committing non-terrorist offences.
	The most important policy decision the Government can take—and I hope that they have taken it—is first to withdraw from the paramilitaries their mystic halo of resistance, and treat them as the common criminals they are. They can no longer claim to exist to protect their people against the security forces. Next the Government need to make it clear to all that the law can be, as the Independent Monitoring Commission says,
	"legitimately enforced only by duly appointed and accountable law enforcement officers or institutions".
	I add here my equally strong condemnation of the idea put out recently by the Progressive Unionist Party that punishment beatings of suspected criminals and anti-social elements are demanded by the working classes in Northern Ireland. I do not believe that that is true, and it certainly should not be put forward as a policy.
	It is curious that in a recent NIO paper, however, Perceptions of and concern about crime in Northern Ireland, the threat to members of the community, whether from exile or so-called punishment beatings by the paramilitaries, is simply not mentioned. The crime rate statistics—car theft, racial violence, and so on—are compared with the relevant statistics in the rest of the UK, where there is no paramilitary control of crime. But the whole problem and tragedy in Northern Ireland is that crime has become the virtually exclusive business of the paramilitaries—like the Mafia.
	I hope that HMG will rule out as they seem to be doing, any question of considering devolution—I would have said elections as well, but I suppose they cannot do anything about that—until the power of the paramilitaries as a criminal organisation has been severely curtailed. The country needs to know that organised crime by the paramilitaries is a major threat to the economic as well as the social well-being of Northern Ireland, where 140 out of 230 organised criminal gangs have paramilitary links. Thus, a high proportion of the most serious criminals—more than 40 per cent—are, to quote the commission, associated with terrorism,
	"with an organisational structure and discipline, and the experience of planning, learning and conducting sophisticated clandestine operations, methods of handling money"—
	bogus charities are among those methods—
	"and with traditions of extreme violence".
	If we tackle that, we shall get somewhere with the eventual political need, and end up with something with which everyone can agree.
	Exiling continues, and the latest form of punishment beating is to tie the victim's hands together and shoot him or her through the hands. But the most insidious threat to any hope of ending the paramilitary grip on society is the continuing atmosphere of threat and intimidation in almost every aspect of life. Nobody dares talk to the press; the press do not talk—nobody talks. Little shopkeepers suffer with the rest. Those who are thought likely to speak out are routinely threatened with death or reprisals against family members or businesses.
	Large groups of thugs convey this message. They routinely terrorise the population simply to protect their criminal activities and secure what the Jamaican Yardies would call respect. Now the IRA itself, smarting under the setback it has encountered, thanks to the firm response of both governments, is almost certainly going to set up a campaign of threats. I am not sure that it will be more than that, but it could be. It is more than ever important to be seen to treat their bullies on the streets as the criminals they are, rather than as brave members of an entirely bogus resistance.
	I believe that no time should be lost in recognising two things. First, Sinn Fein/IRA's activities have created a serious threat to the economy, as well as to society. The Treasury must surely have a view on this—it is usually pretty hot on that sort of thing. Secondly, there is a very real danger that the restorative justice groups, valuable as they are to some, risk, to quote the monitoring report, allowing paramilitary groups to exercise influence under a more benign label than in the past. These groups may well be able to end the role paramilitaries play in the local communities, and I hope they will, but again, they must never be a cover for the exercise of paramilitary influence, and they must be a means for freeing people from the paramilitaries, not preserving them. Tolerance is a fine thing, but not if it can be manipulated, and it has been.
	The two governments have been clear-sighted and realistic so far. That, in itself, is likely to encourage the people of Northern Ireland. The governments must not, however, back down and accept yet more meaningless formulae when there is a very simple sine qua non. No more violence, no more intimidation, no more crime, no more corrupt manipulation of the election process, using a combination of intimidation and ill-gotten gains.
	Let us give the Organised Crime Task Force time and support. If their targets are purely criminal, no one can object. If those targets have a political agenda, then their political masters are not fit to participate in government and must not be allowed to do so.
	It may be said, finally, that an angry and humiliated IRA may threaten to return to violence against the organs of the state rather than against the community. HMG may come to regret their intentions to withdraw troops from Northern Ireland who may yet be needed to support the police. If the IRA does turn to action, we shall see Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness complaining that HMG have made it impossible for them to exercise their benign influence or supporting the IRA. They are, as we all know, part of that body. I also agree warmly with the fact that all the sub-IRAs would not exist were it not for the Provisional IRA finding that useful.
	In that case, what is the value of Sinn Fein/IRA to the peace process? Let us concentrate on destroying the paramilitaries' power base, not for their politics, but as criminals. I believe that we shall have the Dublin Government with us. Let us forget the whole decommissioning process for the moment unless ordnance officers from the US and Canadian armies, as provided in the original Act, are present to verify and certify the destruction of the arms. If we do not have that expert coverage, we may as well not go through that process again.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, the previous debate we had on Northern Ireland was held in April last year. Sadly we appear to be no closer to a solution to the restoration of the Assembly than we were then. My noble friend Lord Smith of Clifton has already reminded us that when he spoke in that debate, he accurately predicted:
	"Were there not to be a restoration, the pattern of Northern Ireland government would be that which now obtains".
	He added:
	"the price to be paid will be a much less direct, less publicly accountable system and little effective input from the citizens of Northern Ireland on how they are governed or, more accurately, administered".—[Official Report, 28/4/04; col. 846.]
	My noble friend then proposed a solution to that impasse, which he has reiterated today, and with which I wholeheartedly agree. Unless something dramatic is done soon, we shall remain hanging in this suspended state indefinitely. That will be catastrophic for the people of Northern Ireland who are looking to the politicians to come up with some sort of solution, and we could do no better than get Northern Ireland politicians engaged as quickly as possible in some of the scrutiny to which we are put and on matters about which they are so much more knowledgeable.
	My interest, as always, is very much in the policing of Northern Ireland. I declare my former chairmanship of a—albeit English—police authority for a number of years. I believe that this is one of the key areas in creating a more peaceful and law abiding society for its citizens.
	Obviously the recent Northern bank robbery and the statement by the Chief Constable have resulted in another crisis in the peace process. My colleagues have raised concerns about how far Northern Ireland still is from a normal, democratic society where the police service of the state is recognised on every street and by everyone as legitimate. Apart from the damage to the peace process, the robbery has served to highlight some fundamental problems that still exist in Northern Ireland.
	I sincerely hope that the PSNI is successful in catching those responsible for the robbery. I know that both the British and Irish Governments, and the Chief Constable, are determined to do so. We cannot underestimate the enormity of the task facing the police. To secure a criminal conviction the police need either high-quality forensic evidence that is sufficient to assure them that the suspects actually committed the crime, or witnesses who are willing to testify. The latter may be the more difficult to find. The grim reality is that many parts of Northern Ireland are still controlled by the paramilitaries—notably the IRA, as we have heard. They have ways of making people remain silent.
	We have made huge strides in reforming the police in Northern Ireland, and I know that officers are working extremely hard to gain the trust of all sections of the community. But miracles cannot be achieved overnight. We must ask whether there is anything more that we can do to help the process.
	As I said, we know that great progress has been made in many areas. Most categories of recorded crime are down—dramatically so in some areas. But there is also the never-ending fear of what I call low-level criminality. Of course, it is not a low level to those who are its victims. To them it is still horrendous and perpetrated by thugs and criminals who aim to hold society in thrall to their own brutish and perhaps political ends.
	The level of this criminality can be so high that one wonders what the word "ceasefire" means. It will be interesting to hear what the Leader of the House thinks it means following the Northern Bank robbery. In their excellent book, An Alphabetical Listing of Word, Name and Place in Northern Ireland and the Living Language of Conflict, Seamus Dunn and Helen Dawson define "ceasefire" as a cessation of violence or a truce—not bombing police stations, not shooting at the military, not perpetrating atrocities in England. Perhaps that is the definition that most paramilitaries recognise. Their continued use of violence creates just as much fear and causes just as much anxiety as it ever did before both sides of the conflict decided to use the word "ceasefire" so casually.
	The Government have never categorically stated what constitutes a ceasefire, or indeed a breach of it. The closest we have is paragraph 13 of the Joint Declaration, but we know that that has not been applied as rigorously by the Government as it might have been.
	Being engaged in the totality of politics in Northern Ireland—which means taking a place in all its political institutions, and most definitely includes the Policing Board, district policing partnerships, community safety partnerships and so on—is one of the most important steps to ensuring a secure and settled future for its people. There are many excellent examples of how those partnerships and institutions are fulfilling their obligations and cracking down on crime. They deserve our support and encouragement. For example, the Northern Ireland Organised Crime Task Force has identified 230 Northern Ireland-based organised crime gangs. It states that the majority of the top-level groups that are known to them are either associated with or controlled by loyalist or republican paramilitaries. It has had some notable hits from the seizure of illegal fuel to tackling drug trafficking on a massive scale.
	The PSNI, too, has been active in all areas of Northern Ireland, leading house raids that have resulted in a number of people being arrested for crimes such as possessing illegal and imitation firearms, detecting offences of money laundering and the seizure of large quantities of drugs, smuggled cigarettes and the counterfeiting of CDs, DVDs, clothing and such like. As I said, its current work gathering evidence on the perpetrators of the Northern bank raid will be absolutely crucial to the future of the peace process. It is also crucial that arrests are made quickly.
	The Oversight Commissioner, Al Hutchinson, in his report number 12, dated December 2004, was warm in his praise of the efforts being made. In the introduction he states:
	"The degree of change already accomplished over a relatively short period, from the Autumn of 2001 to the Autumn of 2004, is both remarkable and unparalleled in the history of democratic policing reform. It must be remembered that over this difficult and challenging period, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) was still required to provide an effective policing service and had to ensure community safety against a backdrop of security, crime and other concerns".
	He added:
	"Credit is also due to the many young people of Northern Ireland, both Catholic and non-Catholic, who continue to demonstrate their ability to move toward peace and stability by applying to join the Police Service, with over 38,000 applications having been received by the Police Service since 2001".
	There are, however, some areas of concern in his report—notably the need to refresh policing with the community, which was felt to have lost some of its initiative, and the fact that not everyone is committed to supporting the police and police institutions. There is concern about the experience of officers, many of whom are relatively new in post. But there are positive signs, too, that community policing training is having beneficial results and will regain its momentum to ensure that communities are policed appropriately.
	One of the areas that vexed me when I had some responsibility for it was seeing how far devolved budgets to DCU commanders would filter down and how many initiatives would be allowed locally. It seems that the same applies in Northern Ireland. I hope that commanders will be given the freedom to operate their areas within the overall policing plan to the extent that the Oversight Commissioner wishes to see.
	I turn now to domestic violence and hate crime. We find that domestic violence accounts for one third of all violent reported crime and averages 40 reported incidents a day—a horrific number. Some progress is being made by the police in a number of initiatives, one of which is printing and distributing beer mats to licensed premises where such incidents are prevalent, giving potential victims contact numbers to enable them to report the crime. I understand that a number of areas are undertaking this project and we shall watch the results with interest to see whether incidents are indeed decreasing.
	On hate crime, the police have launched a poster campaign to raise awareness of this particularly depressing crime. Provisional figures show that around 530 incidents were reported between April and December last year—up 184 from the same period in the previous year. In that total there were 444 racial incidents and 73 homophobic incidents, both categories being up substantially on the previous year.
	Can the Leader of the House tell us whether she feels that the police have sufficient resources to undertake sufficient training to fulfil those difficult and specialist roles while at the same time trying to combat the sophisticated and menacing threat of the organised crime gangs? These issues will not go away until there is some form of normality in the political processes in Northern Ireland. I would suggest that this means much better representation of women on the wider political scene. It is extraordinary that while they have some representation on police boards and the like, they have little in the wider considerations of Northern Ireland politics. Sadly, this appears to run across all political parties and needs to be remedied.
	I can do no better than end my remarks by making one last quotation—and this from my noble friend Lord Alderdice, again speaking in the previous debate we had on Northern Ireland matters:
	"We must ensure that the boundaries of proper acceptable behaviour are the price of peace. We must be clear about that. It is not possible to have peace, stability and reconciliation unless everyone abides by the same reasonable and proper rules".—[Official Report, 28/4/04; cols. 827–828.]
	It really is time to make some decisions—and quickly.

Lord Laird: My Lords, I am, of course, grateful for the opportunity to speak tonight on the issue of the Government's plans to address the impasse in Northern Ireland's political process. I do, however, feel that this is perhaps an untimely debate since the Government's reaction to the Northern Bank heist has indicated that their plan in Northern Ireland is to carry on regardless. In other words, there is no concrete plan to deal with those who have been blamed for creating this deadlock by this British Government, their security services, their counterparts in the Irish Republic, and the Irish Government themselves.
	I would like to know of the noble Baroness the Lord President if she would comment on reports in the Sunday Independent of yesterday that the Republic's Government had been briefed that the IRA was preparing for a return to war. It had agreed to re-arm, recruit, retrain and seek targets at a meeting during the time when Messrs Adams and McGuinness were discussing political progress with both Prime Ministers last November and December. Will she indicate if the same briefing was available to Her Majesty's Government?
	In an ideal world, the electorate would punish non-constitutional or non-democratic parties for failing to deliver on their manifesto commitments. They would punish them for failing to uphold the offices of state to which they had aspired on the basis of a pledge to engage fully in democratic politics. Sadly, Northern Ireland is not an ideal world. So, in the absence of a democratic party system where political elites engage on the basis of the principles of democracy and accountability that are the norm in the rest of the UK, the gauntlet falls to the Government to uphold those standards. It falls to the Government to punish parties whose democratic credentials are not worth the paper they are written on, in order to protect the democratic rights of the people of Northern Ireland, as they would in any other part of the United Kingdom.
	What this means is that if the two governments find that having led the horse to water, spoon fed it with sugar lumps along the way, rested, pampered and addressed its every whim and the animal still refuses to drink, the Government must either seek alternative methods to motivate the beast or buy another horse. I am, of course, speaking about Sinn Fein—a party that has clearly indicated, by its complicity in the bank robbery and, by absolving itself of any political or civic responsibility for this crime, that it, (a) believes that it can act with impunity from the rule of law that applies to everyone else, and (b) that it holds the two governments and the Belfast agreement in utter contempt. Why else, when under pressure finally fully to deliver on decommissioning, would it choose to send a signal of paramilitary might to the two governments? We all remember Adams' veiled threat that the,
	"IRA haven't gone away you know".
	The Northern Bank robbery is clearly saying exactly the same thing, only this time in actions rather than in words.
	I want to take this opportunity tonight to make the most serious of points, and I sincerely hope that the Government will reflect on what I am about to say. If the political process continues to be poisoned by the political expediency and duplicity that have marked the past six years, of which devolution has been operational only for around 22 months, the democratic foundations that the Belfast agreement established will be permanently impaired. By having a two-tier system of government-party relations in Northern Ireland the Government are in danger themselves of becoming blemished by the non-democratic practices of those parties they seek to transform into constitutional entities. By this I mean that since the signing of the Belfast agreement, the British and Irish Governments have, on the one hand dealt with Northern Ireland's democratic parties as they would any other small United Kingdom parties, while, on the other, they have treated those who are wedded to violence and criminality in a fashion that sends law-abiding citizens a very dangerous signal—that under the Government's current political administration Sinn Fein/IRA are above the law.
	The Government have a moral and political imperative, as constitutionally entrenched in the Belfast agreement, to live up to their commitments under that accord. The Government have to date failed to do just that and, as such, the integrity of the agreement is now at stake. The Government must decide which holds primacy in their policy objectives—keeping Sinn Fein in the process and maintaining the silence of IRA guns at any cost, or moving forward the transition process of establishing devolution as the normal mode of administration in Northern Ireland with or without parties that do not accept and adhere to the principles and practices of parliamentary democracy.
	I return to the word "duplicity". We Ulster people are straight talkers and expect that everyone means exactly what they say. Unfortunately, the people with whom I identify, the Ulster Scots, and myself have been at the wrong end of much spinning and duplicitous behaviour in recent years.
	Much of this activity is to support the Irish Government's desire to hold up the cultural revival that is Ulster Scots. In the case of the Department for Culture, Arts and Leisure in recent weeks there has been leaking of incorrect information aimed at damaging the Ulster-Scots Agency and myself. I know who the official was who organised the leak of information to the Belfast Telegraph. He is quite new to the department. He knows that I am aware of his activities and he has since emphasised regret to other officials for his actions, which are more in keeping with the NIO.
	I turn to the cross-Border implementation bodies set up as a result of the Belfast agreement. Let us face facts. In any assessment of the political activities in Northern Ireland, the implementation bodies have been a failure. Even officials who support the concept cannot point to any benefit for the Province that would not have occurred under normal co-operation.
	Duplicity is all around the cross-Border scene. I know many very good civil servants who seek to do their best for all sections on the island of Ireland and I salute them. But there are some on the Irish side who work in senior positions in the North-South Ministerial Secretariat who encouraged me to my face but who worked hard against me when my back was turned. I have many documented cases but will deal only with one now. A senior Irish official gave an interview to the Sunday Times while on a mobile phone in the Dublin area. She attacked the Ulster-Scots Agency for not sticking to a language agenda as Dublin would have preferred. Her words are quoted in the Sunday Times of 13 June last year.
	The more interesting activity that this lady was involved in was the organisation of resources for loyalist paramilitary support groups. Irish taxpayers were funding, for example, a seminar to tell loyalist groups how to conduct themselves in public and in the media.
	According to a document numbered 2230–04, all this activity was at the behest of the President of Eire, Mary McAleese. Also this activity, which has the support of the Irish Prime Minister's department and the Dublin Department of Foreign Affairs, included meetings to discuss resources. The Government are now reported to be offering the loyalist groups £70 million to community capacity build. A senior Northern Ireland official reported his nervousness about the McAleese initiative, and his enforced involvement in it, in a document dated 30 June 2004. He pointed out to the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister that,
	"the secretariat did not prove overly supportive when the Ulster Scots Agency was trying to develop its community capacity building initiatives, but seemed happy to take unilateral action in that field at the behest of the Irish".
	He is confirming there that £600,000 was removed from the Ulster Scots requested budget 2004 to please the Irish. This was money earmarked on a smaller scale for exactly that which was offered to the paramilitaries.
	To put the record straight, those of us who are not Irish but Ulster Scots had £600,000 disallowed, while the loyalist groups were offered £70 million following the McAleese initiative. It seems to many of us that if you are not Irish little or no resources are available to you at the behest of the Irish Government. However, if you are prepared to play ball with the Irish and do as they ask, the sky is the limit. One of the most disturbing sides of this issue is the part played by some senior Northern Ireland civil servants. At all costs, they support the Irish view on all issues.
	In the case of Waterways Ireland, low standards of government have crept in and taken root. I have raised before the issue of staff bullying, mismanagement and the use of incorrect procedures for recruitment. The chief executive was complained against on a charge of bullying by 20 senior members of staff, yet the Department for Culture, Arts and Leisure is content to allow an internal inquiry supervised by the chief executive to hear the complaints of bullying against him. This is not, and cannot be, justice, and it will not be accepted by anyone involved. The chief executive, Mr Martin, has broken the law in Northern Ireland by his refusals to operate an open competition for senior posts. What steps did DCAL take to correct that position? None. Is Mr Martin correct in the opinion that he seems to have that he has immunity from the government in the Republic and can do as he likes?
	Cross-Border bodies are a failure, and a costly one at that. If there is not devolved government they must go. What is the Government's position? Wasting money with no result is bad government, and it must stop.

Lord Steinberg: My Lords, I wish to declare an interest—I have an account in the Northern Bank in Belfast.
	I feel considerably proud and comfortable to engage in a debate concerning the welfare and the future well-being of the land of my birth, Northern Ireland. However, I do not feel the hand of history on my shoulder. Having lived there for the first forty years of my life, and leaving because of the Troubles, I feel competent to deal with one of the latest chapters in its turbulent history. My noble friend Lord Glentoran gave a succinct opening to this debate, for which we are all grateful. Without going into a lot of background, it is unlikely that a new Northern Ireland Assembly will see the light of day any time soon, and it is probable that a period of a year or years may elapse before conditions are right for a return to matters reserved for a Northern Ireland Assembly.
	It has been obvious throughout the background to this debate that there has been a lack of trust, and that lack of trust is even greater now than previously. It matters not that the IRA denies any involvement in the bank robbery, nor does it matter that the police believe that they did it; what matters is that there has been a complete breakdown in trust between Unionists and republicans. How long it will take to repair this breakdown is anybody's guess—I am opting for some considerable time. What happens in the mean time is the thrust of my comments. There are many matters that need to be handled with extreme care. It is like walking over eggshells and trying not to break them.
	I have always been concerned at the cost of government, and it truly does cost a lot of money to run Northern Ireland. Whether such sums are justified in total is another matter, but I will refer to a number of charges that seem high. As someone from Belfast, I have always been conscious of those people who say, "Northern Ireland is too expensive; why do we continue to support it in the way we do?" Not all of the spending is justified, though I realise that the Government tread a very narrow line. There must be a clear form of ministerial accountability, which is lacking at present. I sympathise with the Government in their desire to return to a devolved administration for Northern Ireland, and this latest attempt looked like achieving success up until the last moment.
	What do we need? University top-up fees is one thing to be dealt with; academic selection is another, and the retention of grammar schools is another. Underlying all of these is considerable waste. As best as I can see, general administration costs have risen 23 per cent in the past three years, but much more worrying is that the costs of consultants is up a whopping 75 per cent since the date of the Belfast agreement in 1998. I would have thought that with the Government's 30-year close involvement in Northern Ireland the need for consultants should have disappeared.
	I confess that I am an amateur when it comes to running governments and departments, but I consider myself a professional when it comes to looking at costs and hoping to cut waste and excess. I would not dream of putting myself in the same category as David James, nor would I expect to save £35 billion, but as a long-established businessman I can see areas where costs can be cut, and nowhere better to start with than the employment of consultants. Provisional amounts spent on consultants since April 2001 by a number of departments have risen from £11.1 million in 2001 to £15.2 million. I will not list them all for the sake of brevity, but the Minister will be aware of her Written Answer to my noble friend Lord Glentoran. That really concerns me, because having been in business for practically 50 years, I have always been aware that consultants charge a lot and you do not get a great deal of benefit from them.
	One of my early business experiments was when consultants approached me to save money in the operation of my business. They suggested a capital sum and a weekly payment for the job, which they expected to take three months. When I recovered from the shock, I sent them packing. All that they had told us was already being practised by us. What checks are done before consultants are appointed? Are the jobs tendered for? Is the responsibility for engaging the consultants down to the Northern Ireland department? What benefit, if any, is achieved from spending money on consultants? I refer, of course, to greater efficiency and to cheaper costs.
	Another interesting statistic covers the number of people employed in the Northern Ireland Office. Those total 216,000 working in the public sector, which is nearly 32 per cent of all employee jobs. Obviously in the future, that dependence should reduce to something like the national average, but it will take time. That is why it is so important for new industries to be set up in Northern Ireland, which still has a high level of unemployment, and therefore a labour force ready for work.
	I now turn to another area of expenditure. I fully support the rehabilitation of prisoners, irrespective of the crimes they have committed. Many prisoners reform themselves while in detention, and many come out having become religious. That is good news, and the Government are to be commended for their efforts in the area. However, there is a better way for the distribution of funds to help reformed or reforming ex-prisoners. I am worried, and noble Lords should be worried, to see such a long list of support for a variety of ex-prisoner organisations. The noble Baroness again supplied the figure that there are 91 separate bodies, all being supported.
	What checks are made on those groups? I am sure that the vast majority spend the money wisely, but there must be some whose credentials are a bit shaky. Who visits them, and how many are turned down for the very reason I have mentioned; namely, that they do not satisfy proper inquiries? I have a solution which I commend to this House, which would place all the groups under one umbrella organisation—the Northern Ireland Association for Care and Resettlement of Offenders. Then we could be sure that reports were properly completed, and of whether some of those groups duplicate similar work. I know that it is a sensitive area, and I am sure that there are some doubts, so would it not be better that NIACRO overlooked and oversaw all those groups? I am sure that some moneys would be saved, and that those groups genuinely requiring help might have greater funding made available.
	I shall go back to my earlier remarks. We feel that more care can be taken in the spending of government money. The absence of a proper assembly in Northern Ireland, together with its history, makes our plea one for better accounting, better reporting and ministerial accountability, the spending of less money, and the provision of better security. Interestingly, those are the kind of policies that we are recommending from this side of the House.
	Northern Ireland is still a difficult patient and still requires careful nursing, with the convalescence period likely to be long. With clear objectives and a curtailment on budgets, it can all come good in the end, but we need patience, and we do not need to keep throwing large amounts of money at it. Yes, trust is in short supply. What we all must do is to back the Government in making tough decisions for the benefit of all the people of Northern Ireland. Having spent the best years of my life in Northern Ireland, I am sincerely concerned to see that we all help it to reach normality as quickly as possible. That means stopping intimidation, protection rackets and punishment beatings. Northern Ireland now has a huge drug problem, to which terrorists have turned. Put simply, there are a lot of gangsters ruining people's lives. I commend a careful interest in what I have said, and I hope and pray that normality returns to Northern Ireland as soon as ever possible.

Lord Mayhew of Twysden: My Lords, I shall intervene in the gap with proper brevity and proper diffidence after so remarkable a speech. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who said that we must not conclude that we have reached the end of the political road. There may be other roads—we have heard some outlined tonight—but it is by far the best road. My fear is that the Government will, by jettisoning the means to keep it open, secure that that road becomes closed. That would be a disaster.
	The Government must surely now guard against the possibility that the IRA will resort once again to major violence. There are people who say that that would be so much against its interests that its members could not be such fools as to do it. I point to, most recently, the bank raid, condemned throughout the world, and to many atrocities over years past, all of which were bitterly condemned and could not have advanced the IRA's political objectives by one inch. None the less, that factor failed to deter it. With reluctance, we must conclude that it is sensibly foreseeable that the IRA will once again—for whatever misguided, let alone wicked, reason—go back to major violence.
	Therefore, I must return to a matter concerning the future of Northern Ireland that I have already twice, if not three times, raised in this Chamber with the noble Baroness, Lady Amos. The Government have calculated the need for troops in support of the Police Service of Northern Ireland on the basis that the very welcome progress made politically over the past few years is a fixture and that, if there is to be any change, it will be for the better. Three battalions have now been withdrawn—or perhaps have only been earmarked for withdrawal—not for reallocation elsewhere, but for disbandment.
	I conclude that there can be no sensible answer to the question of from where the support for the police is to come if the situation gets worse and violence of a major kind returns, because there is no reserve. The Army is fully committed, and we have already heard that there are no plans to reduce in the foreseeable future—certainly in the medium term—the commitments to which it is already subject. If the situation got worse in the way which we should foresee, from where is that support for the police in maintaining order going to come?
	I ask that question again tonight, and I hope that I shall be third time lucky. I hope that the noble Baroness will confirm that the Government would not decide to be deflected from their stated policy in the peace process, for fear that they could not cope with the shattering by the IRA of what passes for peace at present.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in tonight's debate, which reflects the interest, knowledge and expertise in this House on Northern Ireland. It has been a very sober debate, although my noble friend Lord Dubs struck a note of optimism, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, considered that the Government should stick to our plans with respect to coming to an inclusive arrangement in Northern Ireland as per the Belfast agreement.
	We all know that peace processes are difficult. We have to demonstrate patience and clarity about our bottom line, and we need to be robust. The Government have demonstrated that. The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, made it clear that Sinn Fein needed to demonstrate that it had severed all links with terrorism and criminality. The Government have always made that clear, which is why I was somewhat disappointed in the views that he expressed with reference to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. My right honourable friend has worked tirelessly to bring about a solution in Northern Ireland, and will of course continue to do that.
	The noble Lords, Lord Glentoran and Lord Laird, mentioned the press article about a £70 million retraining package for the UDA. This is utter press speculation. The Government have neither offered nor been asked for such a package. It is not something of which I am aware at all.
	A number of noble Lords raised the issue of accountability. When we last debated Northern Ireland I made clear that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State was examining proposals to him with respect to accountability. The noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, referred to the need for a 12-month interim plan and his proposals for reconvening the Assembly for some form of pre-legislative scrutiny. The noble Lord has made such proposals before. I recognise that we need to find some way to move matters forward, but it is important that the parties will need to agree. In light of the noble Lord's analysis, I hope that he will recognise the difficulties associated with reaching agreement on that.
	Accountability was also raised by my noble friend Lord Dubs and the noble Lords, Lord Steinberg and Lord Glentoran. We are committed to looking at how best to configure arrangements in Northern Ireland to provide an effective and efficient means of delivering and accounting for local services. The review of public administration aims to do just that. Regarding the next steps, with direct rule the most likely option for the foreseeable future, we will need to consider ways of enhancing its operation in the interim.
	I have heard the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Glentoran and Lord Smith of Clifton, and my noble friend Lord Dubs regarding the electoral register Bill. Once the Bill is published, noble Lords will have an opportunity to examine it in detail.
	The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, asked when the Government would come to the end of the road. I hope that the House will agree that we do not wish to reach a situation where the Government say that they have come to the end of the road. We need to work to find a solution. We cannot just give up. The people of Northern Ireland deserve more than that—I agree in that respect with my noble friend Lord Dubs—and that is why we are looking at a range of options.
	The noble Lords, Lord Fitt and Lord Glentoran, mentioned the importance of the way forward being an inclusive settlement as a preferred option. The noble Baroness, Lady Park, asked for consideration of devolution to be ruled out until the power of the paramilitaries has been curtailed. The Belfast agreement is about an inclusive process, but, as I made clear in my opening speech, if paramilitaries refuse to abandon violence and criminality, we will have to consider an alternative approach, albeit reluctantly.
	The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, also raised the important issue of support for policing. Of course we must move towards a position where the Police Service of Northern Ireland can carry out its functions in all areas in Northern Ireland. The Patten commission was clear that support for policing was essential. Police reform on its own will take us only so far. The police should and must enjoy political support if they are to be able to police effectively across Northern Ireland.
	My noble friend Lord Dubs asked whether we should examine a system of election to Westminster in Northern Ireland other than first past the post. I know that my noble friend does not expect me to agree to that tonight. I saw the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, nodding in agreement and I was sure that the Liberal Democrats would agree with his proposal and, indeed, would wish to push the Government to apply any such different system to outside Northern Ireland.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Park, asked the Government to give more support to the IMC, the Organised Crime Task Force and the Assets Recovery Agency when it is established. I confirm to the noble Baroness that we will give continued support and I agree that the law can be enforced only by law enforcement officers. The noble Baroness raised the question of the value of Sinn Fein/IRA to the peace process. We indicated in the Belfast agreement the importance of moving towards some kind of inclusive solution. That is the Government's preferred option but we would have to look, very reluctantly, at alternatives, if we are unable to resolve the current situation.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, focused her remarks on policing, particularly in Northern Ireland. I agree with her that we need to recognise the difficult context in which the police operate in Northern Ireland and it is important to create a more law-abiding culture for Northern Ireland's citizens.
	Regarding the Northern Bank robbery, the PSNI is undertaking a major investigation into the kidnap, hostage-taking and bank robbery. Over 45 detectives are involved. Over 200 interviews are planned or have taken place and 600 actions have been logged. The investigation team has complete access to all relevant intelligence, which is a clear benefit from the integration of Special Branch and CID. The Organised Crime Task Force's armed robbery expert group is looking urgently at the lessons to be learned from the robbery. The banks and other major financial institutions already meet regularly with the police to discuss crime prevention.
	The noble Baroness also asked me a question that I have been asked a number of times across this Dispatch Box regarding the meaning of "ceasefire". I hope that I am giving exactly the same answer as I have given in the past—that is, the Secretary of State is obliged to keep under review whether groups are maintaining a ceasefire, and that is a judgment taken in the round.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, also raised the issue of domestic violence and hate crime. She reminded the House of the difficulties of these issues in the Northern Ireland community and asked specifically about resources for training. Resources for training to tackle race hate and domestic violence are, of course, a matter of prioritisation for the Chief Constable within the priorities set for the PSNI by the Policing Board. However, if I can add anything about the nature of the training and how it is carried out, I shall write to the noble Baroness.
	The noble Lord, Lord Laird, asked whether I had any information about reports that the IRA is preparing for a return to war. I recognise that there is speculation in the press about the possibility of a split in the republican movement or a return to war by the IRA. I am not aware of any substantive information to support those rumours and must conclude that it is simply speculation without foundation.
	The noble Lord also raised the issue of North/South bodies. I am aware of the noble Lord's concerns about this matter as we have been in correspondence on it. The noble Lord will know that at present the North/South bodies are maintained on a care and maintenance basis. The bodies are subject to a full and rigorous audit by the Comptrollers and Auditors General in each jurisdiction. With regard to the individual case raised by the noble Lord, Lord Laird, he will understand that I cannot address individual cases across the Dispatch Box. The noble Lord has asked me Written Questions on this matter and I have responded.
	The noble Lord, Lord Steinberg, was concerned about the cost of government and the need to justify its spending. In particular, he raised the issue of consultant spending. Just today, I have signed a Written Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, on the matter, but I say to the noble Lord, Lord Steinberg, that consultants can add value by bringing in external expertise. It would be poor value for money for departments to recruit and retain highly specialised staff whose contribution was not needed on a permanent or ongoing basis.
	Of course, as with all public expenditure, it is essential that the use of consultants is properly managed and controlled. Departments must make best use of existing resources and do all that is possible to ensure that consultancy is used economically and effectively. The skills provided by external consultants are often required only on an occasional basis, and so it would not represent value for money to employ staff as full-time civil servants to deliver those services.
	The noble Lord also asked me about the oversight of ex-prisoner organisations. I am aware that a range of new oversight and inspection arrangements is in place following the Criminal Justice Review to ensure the smooth running of, and accountability for, all aspects of the justice system. With respect to the application of that to community and non-governmental organisations operating in this area, if I may, I shall write to the noble Lord if I am able to find any other information.
	The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, again raised with me the issue of troop withdrawal from Northern Ireland. Clearly the noble and learned Lord has not found satisfactory the answers that I have given him across the Dispatch Box. I say again that, for operational reasons, decisions on the deployment of troops are taken by the Chief Constable and the Army. The level of support is kept under constant review and nothing is done to affect the Army's capacity to provide the level of support required by the police.
	I recognise that the noble and learned Lord is asking me about this matter in the context of what may or may not happen in Northern Ireland at some time in the future on the basis of the point that we have reached in our negotiations. I can only say what I have said on previous occasions—that is, decisions on troop withdrawal have been taken with the full knowledge of, and following consultation with, the police services and other security services in Northern Ireland. We remain confident that the support and resources needed exist in Northern Ireland. If, however, there comes a point in the future when we need to review that, we shall of course do so. But, in the current situation, we consider the decisions that we have taken to be fair.
	I hope that that addresses the points made. It has been an important debate. I am aware that noble Lords feel that we have insufficient time to address these issues in the Chamber and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, and to other noble Lords for drawing to my attention the need to have tonight's debate.

On Question, Motion agreed to.
	House adjourned at fifteen minutes after eight o'clock.